TRAFFIC SAFETY PROGRAM WILL BE TOPIC OF VIDEO

After four years of getting to know its business, the Community Traffic Safety program is ready to tell its story on video.

The 20-minute video, expected to be completed late this summer, will be used by organizations to learn more about the program.

All aspects of the program will be covered, ranging from the Cape Girardeau Police Department's driving-while-intoxicated patrol to its speed enforcement.

Copies of the video will be available for any organizations that wish to get involved with or donate money to the program, said committee member, Police Sgt. Carl Kinnison.

Local organizations will not be the only ones who will have the video made available to them; copies also will be sent to agencies at the state and national level.

Kinnison said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington, D.C., and the Missouri Division of Highway Safety in Jefferson City will get a copy. The agencies can use the videos to promote similar programs.

No decision has been made about how many copies of the video will be produced, he said.

"The idea is to get one video done and completed. Once we send it to Highway Safety and NHTSA, they can duplicate as they see fit."

Visual Concepts of Cape Girardeau is creating it.

Program Coordinator Sharee Galnore said the Community Traffic Safety Program is having the video created because, after four years, it "has been able to develop a full, comprehensive program for all the areas of traffic safety."

When created in 1987, the program was the first of its kind started in Missouri, said Galnore. Today, she said, there are three other programs in Springfield, Columbia and Moberly.

The video has several objectives, one of them being to explain, on the local level, what the program is all about. Also, Galnore said, the video needs to be educational, as well as geared towards telling another community how to set up a similar program.