The West Virginia Coalfields Highway Safety Program is hosted by the Mercer County Sheriffโs Office through the Mercer County Commission since late 2016. This regional highway safety program oversees enforcement and educational programs throughout a 6-county region, comprised of McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Monroe, Summers, and Wyoming Counties โ and is funded through our stateโs Governorโs Highway Safety Program and NHTSA. Our main goal of this program is to reduce fatalities, injuries, and crashes as it relates to roadway travels. We partner with several local Police Departments and county Sheriffโs Departments throughout this area by providing funding for training and traffic enforcement. We also partner with local family resource providers and area fire departments to help spread the message of safe travels with children in car seats.
This program is driven heavily by data. From crash reporting, citations issued, to physical traffic surveys โ we process it all. Through highway safety grant funds, we were able to purchase a mobile message board that also collects traffic speeds. This aids in problem identification of roadways where there are a high number of crashes as well as citizen complaints of speeding in their neighborhood. Physical eyes-on surveys are also conducted for seat belt, electronic device (distracted driving), and red light/stop sign compliance on a regular basis.
One of the WVCHSP projects focuses on a full-time funded traffic enforcement position for the Mercer County Sheriffโs Office. Using the crash data for Mercer County, we identified that most crashes occurred between noon and 8PM consistently throughout the prior three years. Starting January 2024, we implemented this project, having one deputy to focus most of the work week on traffic enforcement. For our 6-month stats (January-June 2024), this position yielded over 95 drivers that had a revoked or suspended license! Overall, 546 hours were worked with 861 vehicles stopped. Two stolen vehicles were recovered, 9 felony arrests, 13 misdemeanor arrests, 6 DUI arrests, and 833 other citations were produced from this activity in addition to the suspended and revoked drivers. Generally, crashes have remained about the same, but there is a slight decrease in fatal crashes for this period.
Our WVCHSP has also supported the development of the Drug Evaluation and Classification Program for the state. Our program area hosts 4 certified Drug Recognition Experts, two being employed by the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office. This program and these individuals assist in determining impairment in drug related DUI drivers.
