Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office Wins International Traffic Safety Award

--By Staff Writer on --

The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office has captured an International Traffic Safety Award, Sheriff Ted Paxton announced today.  The award was announced by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) on Saturday, July 21.  The award is related to the Sheriff’s Office promotion of traffic safety, Sheriff Paxton said.

The International Chiefs of Police “Law Enforcement Challenge” is a competition between similar-sized law enforcement agencies across the nation and world-wide.  The Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office won third place in the “2011-2012 Championship Class”.  The Championship Class is a competition of all first place winners from 2010-2011 world-wide. There were nineteen first place winners that competed in the competition.

“Considering some of the very large agencies that the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office competed against for this award, I’m humbled that our traffic safety programs surpassed these well respected and large agencies,” said Sheriff Paxton.  Some of the larger law enforcement agencies that competed in the Championship Class were City of Los Angeles, CA Police Department (9,676 sworn officers), New Jersey State Police (3,014 sworn troopers), Illinois State Police (1,903 sworn troopers) and the Georgia State Patrol (792 sworn troopers).

The Sheriff’s Office has previously won first place in its size category for the last several years.  These awards are given to agencies for their notable efforts in educating citizens, enforcing Georgia traffic laws and contributing to reducing impaired driving, vehicle crashes, injuries and fatalities from crashes.  The Sheriff’s Office was not able to compete in the “size category” this year due to winning first place last year.  “We look forward to the competition each year.  With the programs and enforcement we have in place, we seem to be doing things the right way when it comes to traffic safety and education,” said Sheriff Paxton.

The Sheriff’s Office will be attending the Georgia version of the Law Enforcement Challenge, the “Georgia Governor’s Challenge”, in November in Macon, GA.