The Fairfield Glade Police Department will look to bolster its efforts in addressing safety for older drivers with a new grant from the Tennessee Highway Safety Office.
Police Captain Fred Sherrill said 68 percent of Fairfield Glade’s population is 65 and older. Sherrill said the department is seeing an upward trend in older driver crashes.
“It’s more educational than enforcement, but the enforcement part is also one avenue of it,” Sherrill said. “And we also were able to put together some stuff about getting additional equipment. Signs and a message board, and other stuff like that, you know, just keep our drivers alert and aware.”
The $87,000 grant will help in creating more ways to help seniors. Sherrill said depth perception and vision are common problems for older drivers.
“If you stop at a stop sign, and you look left and right, and you say well, I can beat that car, and you pull out and you have a crash because you didn’t realize that car may have been running instead of 30, maybe it was running 45,” Sherrill said. “So it’s traveling a lot further, and you don’t have the correct speed or time to get out of its way.”
Sherrill said the funding will also go toward the department’s driver safety class and CarFit Program. Sherrill said the CarFit Program ensures a vehicle is properly set up to drive by adjusting mirrors and seatbelts.
“A lot of times, they don’t realize it, especially if they go from one vehicle to another while driving, then they don’t get in and make the proper adjustments and stuff, and it just creates a bad deal when they are driving,” Sherrill said. “And they pull up to a stop sign, and you want to look left, right, left and then your depth perception obstructed because your seatbelts are not adjusted to where it’s on the point of your shoulder and it’s up in your vision.”
Sherill said the grant is a good chunk of money and the department is thankful to receive the grant.
“It just lets us go above and beyond in protecting our community, changing behavior, changing lives, and just making sure that we keep our older drivers and stuff around for as long as we can,” Sherrill said.
