APRI Highlights - Summer 2004

Marsha Cunningham

Acting Director, National Traffic Law Center

NTLC Hosts Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors

Old Town Alexandria was the site of the first national Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutors Symposium held April 5-6, 2004. A joint effort of NTLC, the National Association of Prosecutor Coordinators (NAPC) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the symposium brought together prosecutors from 18 different states, as well as state highway safety office representatives and NHTSA personnel, to discuss concrete proposals for decreasing impaired driving related injuries and deaths by increasing the effective prosecution of offenders. This meeting took place only four months after NHTSA Administrator Dr. Jeffrey W. Runge announced his department’s high priority, comprehensive plan to significantly reduce impaired driving on the nation’s roadways in the coming years. The plan includes enhanced support for DWI prosecution and adjudication.

The underlying purpose of establishing a traffic safety resource prosecutor (TSRP) in each state is to help ensure that all prosecutors have ready access to the information and resources they need to meet and overcome all-too-common hurdles in DWI prosecutions.

The group identified several next steps, including establishing a list serve account for TSRPs. The list serve was up and running within a week of the meeting, and it is already proving to be an invaluable tool for TSRPs around the country.

To contact the National Traffic Law Center, please call us at 703-549-4253 or e-mail us at trafficlaw@ndaa-apri.org.