Police grants provide extra patrols in Caribou

    CARIBOU, Maine — Grant funding aimed to strengthen OUI, speed and distracted driving enforcement will impact Caribou even off the streets.
“The benefit to our community is that we’re getting extra patrols at no cost,” said Caribou Police Chief Michael Gahagan.
Special patrols help ensure traffic flows safely, but those grant-funded hours also mean an extra officer available to stop crime; that was demonstrated last spring, when a Caribou police officer on a grant-funded detail was in the right place at the right time to stop a burglary in progress.
Police officers do stop and prevent different violations during their grant-funded shifts, but the recent grants received highlight specifically OUI and speed enforcement and to bolster young driver occupant protection while discouraging distracted driving. All grants were received through the Maine Bureau of Highway Safety.
The $15,000 grant for OUI enforcement will begin April 1 through September, and the $20,000 grant for speed enforcement is currently underway, concluding in September as well.
A community mini-grant of $5,000 will allow the department to make sure young drivers are in compliance with the intermediate driver rules, are wearing their seatbelts and not driving while distracted.
“As we all know, one of the biggest causes for accidents — especially for young adults — is distracted driving,” the chief said.
The mini-grant will enable officers to provide further enforcement of all sorts of distracted driving behaviors — and police have seen some pretty distracted driving — like folks reading a book when they should be paying attention to the road.
The Caribou Police Department pursues multiple grants each year for things like seatbelt enforcement and underage drinking prevention and enforcement, which is done in county-wide collaboration.
Before the department begins any new enforcement, they educate the community on the subject. In the case of preventing distracted young drivers, for instance, they’ll be heading over to the high school to update the students on the laws.
“Any time we do a new type of enforcement, we like to educate first,” Gahagan said. “It’s that understanding that if you educate, you don’t have to do the enforcement.”
Educational outreach is done through one-on-one interaction, a program of multiple warnings or even social media outreach, like the department’s Facebook page.
“It’s working together, not separate, that makes a difference,” the chief added.