(Left to Right) Jim Hanni, AAA Kansas; Lt. Neufeld and Chief McClarty, McPherson Police Department.
McPHERSON, Kan. – During the McPherson City Council meeting Monday morning, the McPherson Police Department represented by Chief Robert McClarty and Lt. Stan Neufeld were presented with their second AAA Kansas Traffic Safety Award by Jim Hanni of AAA Kansas.
The award’s purpose is to encourage communities to address local traffic safety issues in a coordinated and cost-effective way. Communities can score points for the utilization of each traffic safety enforcement, education, emergency medical response, and engineering programs they conduct and submit, as well as the traffic safety statistics achieved and reported.
They also scored points for having a departmental policy requiring all employees to wear a seat belt.
They were also being recognized for their participation in the highly successful, Kansas-born SAFE seat belt usage education program at McPherson High School, but they also work with Washington, Lincoln & Roosevelt Elementary schools, too.
The department was being recognized for their new social media education efforts on Facebook, with Traffic Stop Tuesday, posting information on traffic safety topics selected from citizen’s concerns.
They were also recognized for the stepped up, high visibility enforcement support of Click It Or Ticket, You Drink You Drive You Lose and speed enforcement efforts in the spring and the fall. Proof of their efforts in traffic safety are shown in the trend of McPherson traffic safety statistics: Teen belt use is at 86%. Child passenger seat use is at 88% and adult belt use has risen from 74% in ’12 to 85% in ‘15; and there has only been one fatality in the past four years, three of those years, then, with none.
McPherson Police Department qualified for a SILVER Award, given to communities that implement programs and projects that demonstrate a STRONG, SUSTAINED effort to address local traffic safety issues.