Grant Details

The Idaho Department of Transportation's Office of Highway Safety (OHS) funds grants addressing specific traffic safety priority areas including Impaired Driving, Aggressive Driving, Distracted Driving, Occupant Protection, Child Passenger Safety, Motorcycle Safety, Youthful Drivers and Traffic Records. Grants may be awarded for assisting the OHS in addressing traffic safety deficiencies, expansion of an ongoing activity, development of a new program, and prevention or intervention efforts. 

In FY 2022, OHS gave priority to the following highway safety projects: 

• Impaired Driving – Includes impaired driving, youth alcohol programs, and community prevention/intervention programs. Grant applications should include one or more of the following activities: specialized enforcement, education, training, and public information efforts.
• Aggressive Driving – Includes speeding, aggressive driving, red light running, and other traffic enforcement activities. Grant applications should include one or more of the following activities: specialized enforcement, education, and public information efforts.
• Distracted Driving – Includes efforts to create public awareness, enforce existing texting laws, education, and other enforcement activities. Grant applications should include one or more of the following activities: specialized enforcement, education, and public information efforts.
• Occupant Protection – Includes safety belt use awareness, safety belt enforcement, special needs, teens, minority programs, and other education programs. Grant applications should include one or more of the following activities: education, training, enforcement, usage and attitudinal surveys, and public information efforts.
• Child Passenger Safety – Includes establishing or expanding child passenger safety inspection stations, child passenger safety awareness training, special needs training, and other child passenger safety programs. Grant applications should include one or more of the following activities: education, training, enforcement, usage surveys, attitudinal surveys, and public information efforts.
• Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety – Includes programs to increase safety awareness among pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists sharing the roadway. Grant applications should include the following activities: education, training, enforcement, surveys, and public information efforts.
• Motorcycle Safety – Includes programs to increase safety awareness and skills among motorcyclists or to increase motorists sharing the roadway. Applications should include one or more of the following activities: education, training, and public information efforts.
• Youthful Drivers – Funding is provided to eliminate fatal and injury crashes by 15-19 year old drivers. Emphasis is placed on prevention through education and enforcement activities. Agencies are encouraged to work with local teen community population groups such as impaired driving offenders, student governments, and other student organizations dedicated to increasing peer-to-peer education of traffic safety issues. Proposed projects will create a change in teen driving behaviors.
• Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP) – If applying for a STEP program grant, provide crash and citation comparison data for up to 3 years prior to the current grant funded years. If the STEP program is using a dedicated officer, the dedicated officer's position must be back filled prior to the beginning of the grant. STEP grants are funded at 75%, 50% and 25% per respective years up to a maximum of three years.

Highway safety grants are intended to provide the seed money” to begin new programs, much like start-up capital is to a new business. All grant-funded projects are intended to become self-sufficient when grant funding terminates and are expected to continue to operate with local or state funds.