BRUNSWICK COUNTY — Stricter traffic enforcement is likely on the way as Brunswick County tries to tamp down on serious wrecks.
The Brunswick County Board of Commissioners will vote on accepting a grant from the North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program on Monday to offset most of the cost in creating its own traffic division within the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office. The award is for $331,367 and will put in $58,477 of its own money.
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That funding will pay for three additional deputies, vehicles and equipment. Year two is expected to provide 70% of the funding from year one, and year three will drop to 50%. Salaries make up most of the program cost, $226,334 for the first year, and $163,500 to purchase equipment, including vehicles, cameras for cars, radar speed detectors and in-car terminals.
The three officers in the division will focus on what the program application describes as “high visibility” enforcement based on traffic data, to reduce the number of highway deaths and promote safe driving at educational events. The officers will be required to participate in campaigns for state highway safety programs.
The county applied for the grant because of its remarkably high vehicle death rates. Brunswick ranked 18th out of 100 counties statewide for traffic deaths from 2016-2020. It had 114 overall with 446 serious injuries from crashes. The county’s traffic safety record is exceptionally poor in a few areas: It ranked 10th in the state for alcohol-related vehicle deaths, 10th in deaths because of not wearing seatbelts, and ninth in deaths of older drivers, 10th in bicyclist fatalists and 27th in young driver deaths.
U.S. Highway 17 and Interstate 140 are marked as problem areas, particularly the Highway 17 causeway between Wilmington and Leland, the main corridor to travel between the municipalities.
According to North Carolina Department of Transportation Data, an average of 20 people die in traffic accidents in Brunswick every year. The same amount of people die on average each year in New Hanover County despite having nearly 100,000 more people than Brunswick. An average of 14 people die in traffic accidents annually in Pender County.
The most recent traffic fatality in the county was on Highway 17 between Brunswick Community college and Randolph Road on Oct. 4. In 2021 the NCDOT started making plans to improve the intersection between U.S. 17 and N.C. Highway 904 after a nine-car pileup occurred.
The program’s main goal: Reduce traffic fatalities in the county by 10% in one year. As a result, people traveling through Brunswick can expect more traffic stops. The sheriff’s office wants to increase how many times it stops people for speeding from 232 in 2021 to 348 in 2023. It has set a goal to increase its stops for people not wearing seat belts from 57 to 85, and either host or participate in at least 12 DWI checkpoints.
As part of the grant, the office has to report its enforcement results back to the state each month. If the commissioners sign off on taking the grant, the money will be added to the 2023 budget and the office will be able to start staffing the positions immediately.
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