City, county high in crashes
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on January 20, 2015 1:46 PM
Goldsboro and Wayne County rank high on a report of traffic accidents in municipalities and counties across the state.
Goldsboro was rated by the Governor's Highway Safety Commission as the city with the fifth highest number of traffic accidents. Wayne ranked ninth among counties.
The statistics have local officials looking for ways to reduce the number of accidents.
Wayne County Sheriff Larry Pierce received permission from the county commissioners to apply for a grant from the Governor's Highway Safety Program.
"I have no idea why we're one of the areas that is so high," Pierce told commissioners at a recent meeting. "It's certainly not something we're proud of, to have that designation, but we are looking to improve that."
Sampson, Lenoir, Duplin, Wilson, Johnston and Greene counties followed Wayne in the report as the 10th, 17th, 33rd, 36th, 42nd and 69th highest for traffic accidents in the state, respectively.
On average, according to the report, a crash occurs in Goldsboro every 2.5 hours.
Over the past five years, more than 33 percent of fatal crashes in Goldsboro have been alcohol-related, and there have been an average of 2,708 accidents per year.
Crashes not involving alcohol typically come from absent-minded or aggressive driving, and other fatalities come from drivers not wearing their seatbelts or texting and driving.
"There are no stats on seat belt use in Wayne County," Capt. Steve Mozingo of the Sheriff's Office said. "The study has never been done, but we would try to do that study if we receive the grant money."
The deadline for applying for the grant is Jan. 31. Word of either approval or denial for grant funds will be handed down in May. And final approval to begin spending grant monies will be on Oct. 1.
If the Sheriff's Office received the funding, the county would get $225,000 over the course of five years for officer salaries and to buy new equipment.
Pierce said the Sheriff's Office would slowly take on the burden of the costs, eventually completely taking over the cost of the officers' salaries and the purchasing of any needed equipment in the fifth year of the grant.
Wake County has a similar program, Pierce said, and it just might be what Goldsboro and Wayne County need to reduce the number of fatal wrecks each year.
"In bigger programs, like in Wake County, the DWI task force creates their own schedule and chooses which highways to patrol," Pierce told commissioners. "We would want to model our program after those larger, already successful programs."
The Wayne County Sheriff's Office asked for permission to apply for the same grant at this time last year, Commissioner Chairman Wayne Aycock noted, but pursuit of the grant was cut short after the death of former Sheriff Carey Winders.
"We recognize that these numbers are atrocious, and we've got to do something about them," Commissioner Joe Daughtery said. "But what we don't want is citizens constantly getting pulled over by this new task force for being a few miles per hour over the speed limit."
Pierce assured the commissioners that the new task force, if it comes to fruition, will focus on stopping DWIs.
"This county has a serious DWI problem, and we've got to do something about it," Pierce said.
Mozingo also said recurring offenders should not be a problem with the help of a task force and a recent North Carolina law.
"Under the new law, we're able to seize anyone's vehicle that is driving while impaired and has had their license revoked," Mozingo said. "We seized 12 vehicles last year."
The grant money would also make funds available for educating teens on the dangers of driving while impaired.
Pierce said high school programs, fatal vision seminars, BAT Mobile presentations and community outreach will all be a part of the effort to educate Wayne County on drunken and impaired driving.
"I think the education piece might be the most important part," Commissioner Bill Pate said.
At the end of the fourth year under the grant, the Sheriff's Office may reapply to fund new positions with more grant money, but will not be able to reapply for the sake of funding the existing positions.
"We've got four or five years to get our stats together," Aycock said. "If we make a change, then it's money well-spent."