Traffic safety grants and media campaigns

Grant Programs

The Bureau of Transportation Safety (BOTS) offers grants to eligible organizations and law enforcement partners that provide services to minimize the number of traffic fatalities and injuries each year on Wisconsin roads. Partners include health centers, law enforcement agencies, fire departments, emergency medical services and other organizations.

The traffic safety programs use federal funds received through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). BOTS also grants State of Wisconsin funds for motorcycle education programs and training safety projects.

More information on BOTS safety plans and reports can be found here.

Child passenger safety seats

BOTS provides funding for several health care centers and departments to purchase child passenger safety seats for families who cannot afford them. This program’s goal is have all child passengers in the correct car seat. Having a child in the proper car seat seriously reduces the likelihood that the child will be injured or killed in the event of a crash.

If your agency is interested in receiving funding for the purchase of car seats, please contact Timothy Dies at timothyj.dies@dot.wi.gov.

Related information:

Law enforcement grants

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 with issues like alcohol use, speed and lack of seat belt use. Regional Program Managers will contact law enforcement agencies if they are targeted for a specific grant.

The bureau 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.

How to apply

If your agency is interested in applying for funding or grants, you are encouraged to contact the office or the Grants Management Supervisor. Applications and proposals are requested no later than March 1 for consideration in the Wisconsin Annual Grant Application on August 1. Awardees will be notified on or before October 1 of Federal Fiscal Year.

Who is eligible to apply?

State of Wisconsin agencies
501(c) 3 non-profits
Local, county and municipal governments
Publicly funded universities, colleges and secondary schools
Federally recognized tribal governments

What type of projects are eligible?

Distracted Driving: Program to educate the public about the dangers of cell phone use, texting and other forms of distraction while driving.
Emergency Medical Services and Trauma: Programs to increase the survivability of crashes by improving availability, quality, and pre-hospital and post-crash care.
Impaired Driving: Adjudication, education, prevention, and improvements necessary to impact impaired driving.
Motorcyclist Safety: Education and awareness programs that encourage proper training and rider endorsement, sharing the road and other public awareness activities.
Police Traffic Services: Overtime enforcement grants targeting non-compliance of the primary seat belt law, impaired driving, speeding, distracted and reckless driving, and vulnerable road user (pedestrian and bicycle laws). Police overtime grants have priority consideration.
Traffic Records: To continue improvements and implementation of data sharing, integration and analysis of citation, crash, trauma, EMS and other roadway data. To disseminate and analyze to create a safer road system and prevent fatalities.

General requirements:

Prospective applicants must use data (crash, demographics, environmental justice, etc.) to identify a traffic safety need.
Prospective applicants must impact a traffic safety need or issue in the state of Wisconsin.
Proposal must provide details about the impact a traffic safety problem(s):

The extent of the problem
How the project will measure success
Reasonable and necessary project cost with clear justification for all listed expenses
Well-defined geographic or demographic areas
Comprehensive and systematic approach
An evaluation method
How it supports the Wisconsin Highway Safety Plan's performance measures and the Strategic Highway Safety Plan

Collaboration and partnership with other agencies is strongly recommended.
Understand this is a federal reimbursement grant program and be able to support the federal match of 80/20 (25%).

Training

All agencies that receive a grant through BOTS are required to take training. The training is available online for grantees to view.

You can register for a grant and find contact information for questions on the WISE-Grants website.

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 with traffic laws. The more often the public learns of enforcement activities, the more likely the positive driving behaviors become a habit.

To save lives and reduce injuries by preventing traffic crashes, BOTS, in partnership with NHTSA, sponsors campaigns that mobilize hundreds of law enforcement agencies throughout the state to increase motorists' compliance with traffic safety laws.

High-visibility law enforcement efforts are combined with effective media campaigns to get more motorists to buckle up, slow down and drive sober. Earned media and social media efforts are crucial ways to educate the public of the importance of traffic safety and enforcement details.

Law enforcement action kits

Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over campaign

December 11, 2024 through January 1, 2025

Law Enforcement Action Kit materials for participating agencies:

For more information: Impaired driving prevention

Click It or Ticket mobilization for seat belt enforcement

May 20 through June 2, 2024

Law Enforcement Action Kit materials for participating agencies:

For more information: Seat belt safety

Additional resources

NHTSA's Traffic Safety Marketing page also provides materials on a variety of additional transportation safety topics. See the calendar for recommended outreach timeframes.

Visit WisDOT's Zero in Wisconsin website for traffic safety advertisements and educational information.