The N.C. Governor’s Highway Safety Program will award $23 million in community-based grants. The grants aim to boost state and local transportation safety initiatives, such as addressing impaired driving, bicycle and pedestrian safety and improvements with traffic safety.

What You Need To Know

  • The N.C. Governor’s Highway Safety Program will award $23 million in community-based grants

  • The grants are expected to help jumpstart new programs for traffic safety

  • Twenty grants will go toward new initiatives

  • The safety program in January will accept applications for the 2025 federal fiscal year 

According to the N.C. Department of Transportation, the program will give 108 grants, including 20 for new initiatives from police departments, sheriff’s offices, nonprofit organizations and research centers.

The Transportation Department detailed several initiatives the grants would cover in a press release Friday:

  • Promote young driver safety by creating Time to Drive, an online training program that gives parents evidence-based tools to improve the supervision and management of new teen drivers
  • Protect first responders through a grant to the N.C. Towing & Recovery Professionals to increase public awareness of the Move Over Law, which protects state troopers, law enforcement officers, and emergency and utility workers stopped along highways. State law requires drivers to slow down or move to another lane when approaching a parked emergency vehicle on the shoulder
  • Create drivers’ education resources in underserved communities by funding the Street Safe Lifesaving Driving Experience to use bilingual instructors and materials to reach the Hispanic community in New Hanover County
  • Expand law enforcement resources in communities most affected by traffic crashes. Over half of the safety program's grants will go to state and local law enforcement agencies to help them catch unsafe drivers and educate their communities about road safety

These grants are expected to help jumpstart new programs for traffic safety. A more detailed list of the grants can be found on the Department of Transportation website.

Mark Ezzell, director of the safety program, said in a statement these grants will ensure to safety for all.

“Everyone has a right to travel safely on North Carolina’s roads,” Ezzell said. “These grants will help communities throughout the state ensure safe transportation for all of our citizens.”

Grant applications open in January for the 2025 federal fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1, 2024.