The Tift County Sheriff’s Office’s traffic safety and education unit has again won state and national awards in the Georgia Governor’s Challenge.

The Tift County Traffic Safety/Education Unit members include Sgt. James Partain and deputies Shane Daughtrey, James Lindsey, Mark Lyles, Chris Strickland and Juan Valdez. Partain also serves as the Southern Regional Traffic Enforcement Network that covers 12 counties. The unit received a second-place award in Category 4 of the Governor’s Challenge for 2009 and the Speed Enforcement Award of the Governor’s Challenge for 2009.

According to Ricky Rich, the division director for special operations for the Governor’s Office of Highway Safety said the awards are based on a department’s officer training program and the innovative improvements they make to operations of the department, among other categories judged.

“We are here every year giving out awards because they are a statewide winner every year and sometimes a national winner,” Rich said.

The process of applying for the awards includes compiling a notebook portfolio of hundreds of pages of documentation that includes graphs, pictures and stories about educational events held, policies and guidelines, officer training information, incentives and recognitions the department has received and other information that includes enforcement activity, child passenger safety, effectiveness of efforts and vehicle occupant protection efforts. According to the portfolio for the TCSO, 8,607 traffic tickets were written by the agency in 2008.

Rich also said that a statewide crackdown to encourage people to use their seat belts and property child safety seats began Monday and continues through Nov. 22. The campaign will target rural and county roads and titled “Georgia is Buckle-Up Country!” Rich said that the DMVS has identified 24 south Georgia counties where the most traffic deaths occur. Although only 25 percent of the state’s population lives in rural areas, the number of deadly crashes out on county roads accounts for more than half of all traffic fatalities, mostly as a result of drivers who aren’t wearing their seat belts.

Rich said that adults riding in trucks aren’t required by law to wear their seat belts.

“It’s not against the law, but it’s against the laws of physics,” Rich said.

According to the GOHS, pickup truck safety belt usage is 17 percent less than other passenger vehicles and nearly three-fourths of the pickup truck occupants killed each year aren’t restrained.

Rich said that each year a legislator proposes legislation to close the seat belt exemption for trucks but that thus far it hasn’t passed.

According to information Rich distributed from the GOHS, in 2008, 1,164 people died on Georgia’s state and county roads compared with 223 deaths on the state’s interstate highways. Also in 2008, 700 people died in Georgia’s most rural counties, compared to 325 traffic deaths in metro-Atlanta’s five largest counties.



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.