A grant awarded to the Livingston County Sheriff’s Office allowed for extra enforcement in Genoa Township with a focus on drivers operating while intoxicated.

The Livingston County Sheriff’s Office recent participation in the Office of Highway Safety Planning OWI Enforcement allowed for 62 hours of additional patrols in Genoa Township. The focused effort resulted in 57 traffic stops, two drunken driving arrests, eight misdemeanor arrests, and 14 citations being issued for violations such as speeding. Genoa Township was the focused area for the enforcement campaign based on statistical information indicating the area has had the highest number of fatal/serious injury crashes involving alcohol.

Sheriff Mike Murphy says while there may be contributing factors, there is not necessarily always a rhyme or reason as to why certain areas are more prone to those kinds of incidents. He tells WHMI, "I've been in this business for 30 years and when you try to predict human behavior, you just don't know. There's certain things that we can say...Grand River and Challis for example has one of the highest crash rates in the County. Look at that intersection and the number of cars that go through it. Of course there's going to be more crashes there than there is at Latson and Allen Road."

Murphy says the Office of Highway Safety Planning records statistics as part of their efforts to reduce crashes and drunk driving and will often award grants to counties to address problematic areas with specific issues. The grants fund extra patrols so that authorities may designate officers to those particular areas for that enforcement. (DK)