WESTFIELD – City police have new tools to enhance safety on the city’s roads and reduce the availability of liquor to underage drinkers thanks to a pair of grants recently received from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration via the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.
One $5,000 grant will be used to make the city’s roadways safer for pedestrian and bicyclists while a second $10,000 grant is earmarked to combat underage consumption of alcohol.
Westfield police Capt. Michael McCabe announced in recent news releases that the two grants have been received and wrote that the alcohol enforcement grant “helps us target the problem of underage drinking on all fronts.” He wrote that the second grant will be used “for education, enforcement and outreach we believe will help protect our pedestrians and cyclists from injuries and fatalities.”
He noted that, according to the Massachusetts Traffic Records Analysis Center, 320 pedestrians died on the Commonwealth’s roadways between 2008 and 2012 and 43 bicyclists died in vehicular crashes.
In Westfield, a cyclist died due to a collision with a motor vehicle on Western Avenue in both 2012 and 2013.
McCabe said that the new grant is important because “Bicyclists and pedestrians are particularly vulnerable to the motoring public because they may not be immediately visible to drivers and unlike those in vehicles, nothing protects them from impact.”
He said that the grant will fund enforcement, decoy patrols and breakaway signs which will help the department analyze traffic hazards and “crack down on drivers, pedestrians, and cyclists who do not share the road appropriately.”
The second grant will fund enforcement activities to keep alcohol away from young drinkers.
It will be used for efforts such as compliance checks throughout 2015 for minors in places where alcohol is sold, reverse stings, party patrols and ‘cops in shops’ programs to “crack down on minors who seek to circumvent the law and people and businesses that enable them.”
He said “Teens and parents need to be reminded that underage drinking is not a game. It’s deadly serious.”
He also pointed out that “Parents need to know that hosting a party where alcohol is served to minors is illegal and extremely dangerous for young people and the entire community. Parents should also know they will face all legal liabilities.”
McCabe noted that vehicular crashes are preventable and wrote that city police are “committed to using (these) grant(s) to reduce the number of motor vehicle-related fatalities and injuries in Westfield because any loss of life or injury on our roadways is one too many.”
