Highway Safety Grant Awarded to Sheriff

was selected as one of the recipients of a Highway Safety Grant awarded by the S.C. Department of Public Safety. 

Residents will see an increase in the number of “checkpoints” and, the specially marked vehicles will be more visible, in an attempt to remind the citizens to drive safely.

Announced by Dorchester County Tuesday, the grant will allow for two full time deputies whose duties will be to enforce traffic laws in Dorchester County in an attempt to decrease the number of traffic collisions, injuries and fatalities.

Emphasis will be mainly on preventative measures such as seat belt violations, following too close, speeding, disregarding sign/signals, child restraint violations, DUI education/enforcement and other violations that directly lead to traffic collisions. 

According to a statement from the county, the deputies will be available to attend schools, churches and other civic meeting in an effort to educate the driving public in their function what the individual can do to reduce these traffic collisions.

The grant allows the Sheriff’s Office to acquire the deputies, outfit and train at no expense to the local taxpayers, according to the county. 

While the emphasis of the grant is not necessarily to increase the number of tickets written, a byproduct of the full-time enforcement will be an increase in the number of citations and an increase in the number of DUI arrests throughout the county, according to the statement.