Top Headlines

Officials: Highway Safety Program Efforts Deliver Proven Results

WHEELING - Enforcement of traffic laws remains a proven means to increase safety on the roadways, reduce motor vehicle crashes and prevent fatal accidents, and local and state officials collaborate every year in an effort to continuously improve these numbers.

Jack McNeely, director of the West Virginia Governor’s Highway Safety Program, visited officials in the city of Wheeling this week to provide some statistics from the past year that demonstrate the effectiveness of the highway safety efforts in the area.

Members of Wheeling City Council recently approved a resolution to accept terms and conditions of the contract related to the Region 4 Governor’s Highway Safety Program for the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. The city administers the state program for the entire region, and grant funds in the amount of $255,100 will help law enforcement agencies throughout the Northern Panhandle pay for targeted highway safety initiatives over the next 12 months.

"I just wanted to highlight your recent award for the new federal fiscal year for the Region 4 grant," McNeely told members of Wheeling City Council this week.

McNeely traveled from Charleston to meet with Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger on highway safety matters and to review statistics with members of Wheeling City Council. He went over some of the totals on enforcement measures and fatalities in the region for 2024. McNeely noted that his agency operates on the federal fiscal year, which runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30.

"For Region 4, there were 18 fatalities, and in the city of Wheeling, there were two," McNeely said, noting that the final numbers for the federal fiscal year 2024 were just recently completed on Monday. "Enforcement dollars spent for the Governor’s Highway Safety Program-funded overtime enforcement for Region 4 was $31,065. The city of Wheeling had the lion’s share of that at $23,555."

Wheeling is the largest municipality in the region and accounted for more than 75% of enforcement funds spent in the region last year, McNeely said.

Region 4 includes counties in the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, as well as other counties to the south along the Ohio River. Counties in the region include Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, Marshall, Wetzel, Tyler and Pleasants counties. The Northern Regional Highway Safety Office is located inside the Wheeling Police Department Headquarters.

"Our main mission at the Governor’s Highway Safety Program is to reduce crashes, serious injuries and fatalities," McNeely said.

The agency’s occupant protection program - known to many as Click it or Ticket - in Region 4 last year resulted in 83 citations with 47 of those issued in the city of Wheeling. These are statistics that are strictly from overtime hours made possible through the grant, McNeely noted.

Going back to the previous completed year, there were a total of 730 overtime speed enforcement citations in the region, with 512 issued in Wheeling.

"I think there is some correlation here with the city of Wheeling’s participation in the enforcement efforts - it directly correlates with having only two fatalities," McNeely said. "And that’s been on trend for the last several years."

McNeely said he has focused priorities for highway safety during the 2025 federal fiscal year, including a priority reducing distracted driving.

"In 2023, the city of Wheeling had 101 distracted driving overtime citations written out of 139 for the region," he said, noting that not all of the funds provided through the Governor’s Highway Safety Program are utilized by departments in the region - although they should be. "My goal in 2025 is to increase law enforcement agency participation and law enforcement officer participation in the program."

Wheeling City Councilman Dave Palmer, chairman of the Finance Committee of Council, said city officials were grateful for these types of funding sources that effectively help promote safety in the area.

"Keep the dollars rolling towards us, because we need it," Palmer told McNeely. "It’s fearful that people are not paying attention and are not slowing down. And I think the only way to do it is through enforcement, unfortunately. If we would just adhere to the laws on the books, I think we would be a much safer place. But unfortunately we need these kinds of programs just to remind people a little bit."