Town Safety

Clinton County Safe Communities

 

Clinton County Healthy Community Coalition

Clinton County Sheriff Department

Phone: 989-224-5200

E-mail: worthing@clinton-county.org

Contact: Sharon Worthington

Region: Clinton County

 

Coalition Background

The Clinton County Safe Community coalition is a subcommittee of the larger Clinton County Healthy Community coalition. The Safe Community coalition is comprised of representatives from the local police department, the sheriff’s department, the district health department, and other concerned community residents. They meet once each month.

ACTS Information

The coalition completed the ACTS in fiscal year 2002. According to the ACTS, top deficits include an excessive older driver (70+) crash profile, drinking and driving, violated traffic controls crash profile, and excessive heavy truck involved crash profile. Clinton County ranks 11th highest in the state for excessive older driver crashes.

Enforcement asset scores were higher, specifically intensified speed and alcohol enforcement. Asset scores were lowest for alcohol server training and mature driver training programs.

 

Strategies to address traffic safety deficits

Obtain more data

The coalition obtained GIS maps and tables on specific locations of older driver and heavy truck involved crashes in the county for two years past in order to learn more about those types of crashes. They also obtained the Older Driver Toolkit, which is available on the ACTS website, www.townsafety.com.

In addition, the coalition conducted asset mapping in which they obtained contact information for local services they could collaborate with, or for services they could bring to the county. Specifically they obtained information on the following services available to address their traffic safety deficits:

  • AARP’s Mature Driving Retraining Workshops
  • Other older driver programs
  • Organizations in the county who provide driver’s education courses
  • Information from the Michigan Center for Truck Safety
  • Videos and instructional materials on driving around heavy trucks
  • OHSP sponsored trainings for law enforcement on alcohol issues
  • Techniques of Alcohol Management (TAM) courses offered by the Michigan Licensed Beverage Association (MLBA)
  • Dates for local community festivals for summer 2002

Share data with the community

The coalition gave presentations about the data at community and agency meetings, such as law enforcement agencies, the Board of Health, and community collaboratives. They sent press releases and letters to the editor to local newspapers. They also wrote a report for the Spring 2002 edition of the Community Health Focus.

 

Programming

The coalition provided information about Drive Safely Work Week to several local employers. The employers all expressed interest in disseminating the information to employees in a variety of means including newsletters, paycheck stuffers, and e-mail messages. Police Chief Madden wrote a news release for local newspapers about Drive Safe Work Week.

Participating employers included Clinton Area Transit, County Government, the Health Department, the Rotary Club, a federal credit union, and Clinton Memorial Hospital. The total number of individuals reached through these efforts thus far is 681. The group feels that this is a great beginning for next year’s program.

Future Plans

The coalition has created a planning grid for fiscal year 2003. Plans include:

  • Coordinating AARP Mature Driver Programs.
  • Working with driver education programs to advocate for inclusion of information on how to drive around heavy trucks.
  • Coordinate responsible beverage server trainings.
  • Invite Steve Betterly from the Michigan Department of Community Health to present at a community meeting about older driver issues.
  • Arrange to have videos played at the health department at flue shot clinics about older driver issues and heavy truck issue.
  • Planning a safety belt event with youth groups from local congregations.

 

May Update – Progress on their 2003 Plan:

The Clinton County Safe Communities Coalition was awarded a $5,000 Safe Communities grant through Prevention Network in April to conduct their Meeting Our Safety Needs Across the Ages project. Activities for their project will begin in May, and correspond to their 2003 planning objectives to include:

  • Scholarships for senior citizens in the county to attend AARP "55 Alive" programs sponsored by a collaboration of several community agencies.
  • Creation of a senior citizen community group to give input to the coalition on elderly mobility issues and other safety concerns they may have.
  • A survey of driver’s education programs in the county.
  • Development of a community presentation that can be used to inform community members and agencies about safety initiatives the coalition plans to implement.