Washington – U.S. Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor and U.S. Representatives Marion Berry (AR-01), Vic Snyder (AR-02) and Mike Ross (AR-04) today announced that the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department will receive a $500,000 U.S. Department of Transportation grant to improve its record-keeping system on crashes and other traffic incidents that occur in Arkansas.
Funds will be used to develop a statewide system to accumulate traffic accident reports from Arkansas’s local law enforcement agencies and ensure they are stored in a single database.
The widespread use of electronic – rather than paper – crash records will save the state money and resources. In addition, funds will be used to improve ambulance and emergency medical services record-keeping.
“This funding will enhance our state’s record-keeping capacity and help save taxpayer money by streamlining the process,” Lincoln said. “I am committed to securing federal investments for state and local priorities that save money and make Arkansas stronger.”
“The more we know about where and when traffic accidents occur, the easier it is to find and fix problem spots and dangerous intersections. These funds to improve the state’s traffic record-keeping system will save taxpayer dollars and make our roads safer for families,” Pryor said.
“Investing in this technology to improve efficiency in our records is a great way to save Arkansans money,” Berry said. “I will continue to support efforts to make our taxpayer dollars work better for Arkansans.”
“Arkansans will benefit from these improvements to highway and traffic safety records,” Snyder said. “In addition to maximizing efficiency and effectiveness, these improvements will help save money and save lives.”
“One of my top priorities in Congress is to be more efficient with how we spend taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” Ross said. “This funding will allow our state highway department to modernize its record-keeping system, which will cut unnecessary costs and ultimately improve safety on our state’s highways.”
“These funds will help us to continue implementing significant improvements to the state’s Traffic Records System and to include current efforts to transition from a paper-based manual data entry system for traffic crash reports and citations to electronic data capture. These improvements will make the data more timely, accurate, complete and accessible for use in identifying and evaluating the State’s traffic safety problems, which will help us to better deploy resources,” said Bridget White, Arkansas State Police Highway Safety Administrator.
