CAPS’ outreach involves additional services to the law enforcement and criminal justice communities that draw upon the expertise that we have built up in the areas of law enforcement and traffic safety. We consider it our civic responsibility to enter into not only countermeasure development, but the actual implementation of countermeasures when it is clear that our criminal justice and/or traffic safety expertise make CAPS the logical choice for such projects. Many of these projects require problem identification and documentation skills, which we have on our staff. Other projects have evolved from our development of systems that the sponsors have felt we would be in the best position to operate. The following represent just a few of the outreach projects with which CAPS is involved, several of them for many years.

Click It or Ticket Campaign (CIOT) – high-visibility, massive enforcement effort

to detect violators of Alabama's seat belt laws. Spearheaded by the Law Enforcement Traffic Safety Division (LETS) of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA), law enforcement mobilization involves more than 1,500 safety checkpoints in every county in Alabama conducted jointly by state, county and municipal local law enforcement agencies, which is the largest law enforcement mobilization effort in Alabama's history. An intense public information and education campaign is run concurrently with the enforcement blitz to inform the motoring public of law enforcement's attitude of “zero tolerance” for seat belt violations.

Buckle Up In Your Truck Campaign (BUIYT) – modeled after the Click It or

ticket program that had proven to be very effective in increasing safety belt usage, this project addressed a special group of “holdouts” that had been identified on both the national and statewide level – pickup truck drivers and occupants. Since this group has the lowest recorded safety belt usage, the “Buckle Up in Your Truck” program was introduced in Alabama in 2005. This program was organized and operated in conjunction with the 2005 “Click It or Ticket” program, but it focused on occupants of pickup trucks. Its success in 2005 led to its being repeated in 2006 and in 2007. Alabama was one of eight southeastern states that participated in the initial BUIYT programs. CAPS’ role was to perform evaluations of the programs based on before and after data, and to compile a comprehensive report for the programs.

CARE Involved Reporting and Problem Identification – the Critical Analysis

Reporting Environment (CARE) system is featured in the Software section to illustrate its value as a generic software tool for satisfying database queries, and especially for its unique information mining capabilities. In this section we take a look at some of the things that CARE is used for on a more routine basis. These include:

• The generation of information for the Crash Facts Book;
• Production of problem identification information for the Alabama Highway Safety Plan (HSP); and
• Support for the Alabama Statewide Highway Safety Plan (SHSP).

Crash Facts Book

Alabama Highway Safety Plan (Office of Highway Safety)

Statewide Highway Safety Plan (FHWA)

Daily Fatality Statistics E-mail – CAPS receives a report daily on weekdays of

the number of fatalities that have been investigated by the Department of Public Safety, and pushes this information out on its distribution list.

Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest. Campaign – Alabama participated

in the 2009 nationwide Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest crackdown. This consisted of various law enforcement activities including intensive selective enforcement and check-stops. It also involved providing press releases and public service announcements to newspaper, radio and television coverage. Law enforcement efforts included local police departments, county sheriff’s offices and the Alabama State Troopers.

Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks Program (TACT) – is a program to deter

unsafe driving behaviors by passenger vehicle and commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers when they interact to share the road, thereby reducing the number of CMV-passenger vehicle crashes, injuries, and fatalities. TACT combines outreach, education, and evaluation with targeted enforcement activities to raise awareness among car and truck drivers about unsafe driving behaviors. Such behaviors may include, but are not limited to: unsafe lane changes, tailgating, failing to signal lane changes, failing to yield the right of way, speeding, and aggressive driving (a combination of two or more behaviors). CAPS role in the project was one of determining TACT hotspots and designing and developing a TACT website for use by law enforcement personnel. The website allows officers to view data and maps of the hotspots and to report their enforcement efforts. CAPS will also be involved in analysis after each phase of the project.

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