BATON ROUGE - Local police have been awarded an enforcement grant funded by the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission (LHSC) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to further crack down on seatbelt, drunk driving and speeding violations in the Capital City.

Enforcement operations in connection with the grant will run for a total of 12 months, running from Oct. 1, 2015 to Sept. 30, 2016.

The Baton Rouge Police Department uses LHSC funding to supplement their existing full-time DWI Task Force, Traffic Bureau, Speeding, Seatbelt and Underage Drinking Enforcement divisions. Thanks to the grant, BRPD has been able to deploy an additional 14,000 man hours to the streets of Baton Rouge, adding more police presence and targeting specific offenders in order to reduce alcohol-related traffic crashes and resulting fatalities within the city limits.

Supplemental funding for the 2014-15 period added the following program results, independent of on-duty enforcement:

-803 DWI Arrests
-5,746 Occupant Protection (Seat Belt) Violations
-1,339 Child Restraint Violations
-2,598 Speeding Violations
-13,805 Traffic Violations
-527 Other Arrest
-5 DWI Checkpoints
-143 Occupant Protection Checkpoints