Kentucky earns highway safety award

Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher has won a national award for historic highway safety measures that have resulted in a decrease in traffic fatalities in Kentucky.

Fletcher received the 2007 Peter K. O’Rourke Special Achievement Award, the highest award of the Governors Highway Safety Association, at the recent GHSA annual meeting in Portland, Ore. The award recognized outstanding highway safety accomplishments in 2006.

During that period, Fletcher, working with the Kentucky Legislature, won passage of three important highway safety measures: the primary seat belt law, graduated driver’s license legislation, and “quick clearance” law, which permits drivers involved in minor, no-injury fender benders to move their vehicles to the side of the interstate or parkway. Highway fatalities dropped to a five-year low in 2006.

Kentucky recorded 913 highway fatalities in 2006, down from 985 the year before and the lowest total since 2001, when 843 people died on Kentucky roads. Fatalities to date in 2007 number about 25 fewer than at the same point in 2006, though figures may fluctuate daily. The primary seat belt law is expected to save more than 60 lives in Kentucky over the course of a year.