The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has been awarded a $90,000 grant from the Florida Department of Transportation to promote motorcycle safety. This is the third year in a row that FCSO has been awarded grant funding by FDOT for this enforcement and education area.
The grant will primarily be used to provide funding for overtime for the FCSO Traffic Enforcement Unit to conduct enforcement and driver education focusing on motorcycle safety. These measures aim to strategically target unsafe driving behaviors from both motorcyclists and vehicle drivers who show a lack of awareness to motorcycles.
“Motorcycle crashes are a serious issue affecting the safety of our community. Just in the last few weeks, we’ve unfortunately seen multiple fatal motorcycle crashes,” said Sheriff Rick Staly. “And sadly, the blame can go all around. Sometimes the crashes are the motorcyclist’s fault, and sometimes it is another driver who didn’t see the motorcycle. That’s why it is important for everyone on the road to follow traffic laws and pay attention by not driving distracted.”
The grant will also fund the purchase of additional speed measurement equipment and public awareness materials.
According to FDOT, Florida continually ranks in the top three states in the nation for motorcycle related fatalities, which can be attributed to the state’s growing population and popularity with motorcycle enthusiasts. Flagler County in particular experiences heavy motorcycle traffic during the Daytona Beach Bike Week and Biketoberfest events, due to its close proximity to Daytona Beach.
“Many motorcyclists live in and travel to our county, especially during popular events,” Sheriff Staly added. “I believe in bringing as much grant money to Flagler County to make our community safer. This grant is key to assisting our mission to keep all drivers and motorcyclists on our roadways safe.”
Since 2020, 413 motorcycle crashes have occurred on Flagler County roadways. Of these crashes, 37 have resulted in fatalities.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Good now P/C can save some cash
JimboXYZ says
FL DOGE waste at it’s finest. They’ve had Bike Weeks (Spring/Feb/Mar) & Biketoberfest (Fall/Oct) for decades on end. The really stupid motorcyclists will weed themselves out of the grid lock traffic game. The rest of us will have to listen to Harley’s rumble & the other brands make their high rev 10K rpm, small bore mosquitos noises. That’s all of the motorcycle awareness that’s ever been necessary. There will be motorcycle rides for bar hopping, the alcohol abusers will be impaired as usual, other’s will casually socialize to gawk at ordinary motorcycles in parking lots. That’s bike weeks in a nut shell, that cycle of weeks. And like any bike theme week ? We’ll get our usual share of the motorcycle types that speed, pop wheelies and generally are a annoying nuisance of safety issues to the normal lifestyle of Coastal Central FL.
More pressing for Awareness is the potential Hurricane that may form west of Humberto for Monday afternoon. The awareness ? late Sept => Oct is 60+ days of hurricane season that is more concerning to Flagler/St John’s Counties than Biketoberfest.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?start#contents
Shark says
Now all they have to do is some enforcement – good luck with that. It would be interesting to know how many summonses they issue to justify all of these $90,000 grants.
Kennan says
Helmets would be a good start Florida.
hjc says
How is using $ 90000.00 for overtime pay helping to improve safety? Another gift to the deputies.
JimboXYZ says
As Biketoberfest is upon us, Friday 10/17 was a, to Daytona Beach/Ormond Beach round trip drive. US-1 is my preferred route vs the I-95, 70+ mph speed limit. Plenty of motorcyclists either way though. Ormond Airport has it’s biker rural highway bar crawl. I’m being tailgated by a pack of bikers. That doesn’t bother me so much for them rear ending my car for the traffic. They’re going to be at fault & injured more so than I would be. Rather not deal with that type of accident. But it’s typical of my encounters with motorcyclists for these semi-annual bike week type events. $90K is wasted money for awareness for me. I was plenty aware of them. These are grown adults that don’t take the accountability & responsibility for their poorer vehicle operation than it is anything else. Maybe the $ 90K for that small pack of biker friends might save a life for awareness ? I doubt it though. When the Biker party zones are that crowded they need to leave enough following distance. Share the road, motorcyclists for a safe following distance. That’s HS Driver’s Ed 101, the laws of physics apply to cars & motorcycles.