The N.C. Governor’s Highway Safety Program​ is awarding more than $23 million in community-based grants to state and local transportation safety initiatives. Most of the 108 grants will fund initiatives that address impaired driving, bicycle and pedestrian safety, and traffic safety improvements. Twenty new grants will be awarded to police departments, sheriff’s offices, nonprofit organizations and research centers.

These grants will seek to accomplish the following: Promote young driver safety by creating ‘Time to Drive,’ an online training program that gives parents evidence-based tools to improve the supervision and management of new teen drivers. Protect first responders through a grant to the NC Towing & Recovery Professionals. This aims to increase public awareness of the Move Over Law, which protects state troopers, law enforcement officers, emergency and utility workers stopped along the side of highways. State law requires drivers to slow down or move to another lane when approaching a parked emergency vehicle on the shoulder.

Create drivers’ education resources in underserved communities by funding the Street Safe Lifesaving Driving Experience to use bilingual instructors and materials to reach the underserved Hispanic community in New Hanover County. ​Expand law enforcement resources in communities most impacted by traffic crashes. Over half of GHSP’s grants are to state and local law enforcement agencies to help them catch unsafe drivers and educate their community about road safety.​​​

You can see this year’s grants by going to this story at www.ncdot.gov and clicking the link listing them. Many of the grants are used as seed money to jumpstart new traffic safety programs. In most cases, the grantee provides a portion of the project costs and is expected to continue the program after GHSP funding ends. In January, the Governor’s Highway Safety Program will be accepting grant applications for the 2025 federal fiscal year, which begins October 1, 2024.

[News release from the North Carolina Department of Transportation]