The Bureau of Transportation Safety (BOTS) administers federally funded overtime traffic safety grants to local law enforcement agencies each year. The overtime grants are awarded to agencies through data driven targeting processes. The targeting process reviews crash data from the previous year to determine what areas have a traffic safety problem. The process is used to determine traffic safety concerns such as alcohol use, speed and lack of seat belt use. BOTS Regional Program Managers will contact law enforcement agencies if they are targeted for a specific grant.
BOTS also provides grants to agencies that are not targeted but are part of a task force in their area. A task force is a group of law enforcement agencies working together to plan high visibility enforcement in their communities. Task forces can operate in their individual communities but all on the same day and time or they can concentrate one agency’s community on each of their deployments. Please contact your Regional Program Manager if you are interested in joining a Task Force.
Regional Program Manager Map
Grants are managed through the Wise-Grants system:
www.wigrants.gov
Grants Training
All agencies who receive a grant through the Bureau of Transportation Safety are required to take training. The training is available online for grantees to view: FFY 2019 training
High Visibility Enforcement
The goal of traffic enforcement is to change the public’s negative driving behaviors High Visibility Enforcement educates the public on the agency’s traffic enforcement plans with the goal of voluntary compliance from the public. The more often the public learns of enforcement activities, the more likely the positive driving behaviors become a habit.
Earned media, working with local papers and radio and television outlets are one part of high visibility enforcement. BOTS and DOT create
media kits for agencies to use. Agencies can also use signage and social media as ways to inform the public of the importance of traffic safety and enforcement details.
Related information: