GPD receives $280K grant to help with traffic safety
Glendale motorists may want to reconsider getting behind the wheel of a car if they’ve been drinking because the city’s police department has received a $280,000 grant to help catch impaired drivers.
The money was awarded by the California Office of Traffic Safety and will go toward funding the agency‘s various traffic-enforcement and safety-education programs from now until the end of September 2020.
According to a statement from the department, the grant will fund DUI checkpoints, patrols specifically on the lookout for drivers on their phones and training officers to identify people who are suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
The money will also go to help compile a list that will identify repeat DUI offenders in the city, according to the statement.
In 2018, Glendale police made 336 drunk-driving arrests, according to statistics provided by the department. It was a slight drop from the 374 arrests that were made in 2017.
According to the California Office of Traffic Safety, drunk driving accounted for 70 collisions in Glendale that resulted in a death or injury during 2016 — the most recent year the state department has for statistics.
Of those collisions, three involved drunk drivers under the age of 21, and 19 involved drivers between 21 and 34 years old.
The city also made 553 DUI arrests in 2016, which included both drunk and drugged drivers.
