- MADD Roll Call Series | MADD Law Enforcement Impaired Driving Roll Call Video Series
- MADD’s 2021 Court Monitoring Report | Effective Court Monitoring
- MADD/Ipsos Poll | Consumers Support Drunk Driving Prevention Systems in Cars
- DRUG-IMPAIRED DRIVING ENFORCEMENT TRAINING (DIDET) | Get support for your DIDET program!
- Drug Impaired Driving Enforcement
Training Opportunities Available | Training in Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE) and as Drug Recognition Experts (DRE) - Drugged Driving | Dangers of Prescription Drug Consumption and Driving
- MADD’s Marijuana Survey Report | Misconceptions about Marijuana Consumption and Driving
- Legislation | Check Out Your State’s Legislature
- NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts | Overview of Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2019
- NHTSA | State Alcohol-Impaired Driving Estimates for 2018
- NHTSA Early Estimates of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities | First Quarter of 2020
- NTHSA RFI | Available or late-stage technology under development for impaired driving detection and mitigation
- TOOFS | MADD and Waymo’s Tie-One-On For Safety Holiday Campaign
- 2021 National Lifesavers Conference | Register
- IACP | Traffic Enforcement During the COVID-19 Pandemic Processing DUIs during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Considerations for Law Enforcement Safe, Quick Clearance of Traffic Incidents toolkit Policy Framework for Improved Community-Police Engagement
- Warriors’ Ascent | Providing hope and healing to Veterans and First Responders suffering from Post Traumatic Stress
Law Enforcement Support

October 2022 Mission Moment
Deputy Constable Jennifer Chavis
Harris County Constable's Office - Precinct 7, Texas
On April 2, 2022, Harris County Deputy Constable Jennifer Chavis was killed when her patrol car was struck by a drunk driver on Beltway 8 near Fondren Road.
Other drivers had called 911 to report that the driver of a Ford F-550 was possibly drunk and had just fled the scene of another crash. Deputy Chavis positioned her patrol car on the shoulder of Beltway 8 and waited to intercept the vehicle. The vehicle struck the back of her SUV while it was parked on the shoulder, causing it to burst into flames. Several bystanders detained the driver as he attempted to flee the scene. He was charged with felony intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer.
Deputy Constable Chavis was a United States Army veteran who served 1 1/2 years with the Harris County Constable's Office - Precinct 7, assigned to the Toll Road Division. She is survived by her husband, son, and nephew.
On September 21, 2022, the Southwest Toll Plaza in Harris County was renamed the Deputy Constable Jennifer L. Chavis Memorial Building

Law Enforcement and the Safe System Approach
By National Transportation Safety Board Member Tom Chapman
Almost 43,000 deaths occurred on US roadways in 2021, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) preliminary data. That’s a staggering figure we have not seen since 2005. Instead of achieving zero traffic deaths, we are heading in the wrong direction. We must redouble and rethink our efforts to improve road safety. We at the National Transportation Safety Board advocate the Safe System Approach to address this public health crisis on our roads.
With this approach, we seek to eliminate death and serious injury and address road safety as a system, rather than focusing on individuals. The Safe System Approach is built on the following key principles:
- It assumes that humans make mistakes and promotes methods to prevent these mistakes from causing deaths or serious injuries.
- It seeks to accommodate human vulnerabilities by managing kinetic energy, which is directly related to speed.
- It emphasizes shared responsibility among all participants in the system, including road users, engineers, planners, law enforcement officers, and policy makers.
- It highlights the need to be proactive, relying heavily on adequate investigations and high-quality data.
- It stresses that redundancy is crucial in ensuring safety.
The Safe System Approach focuses on five elements – safe users, safe roads, safe vehicles, safe speed, and post-crash care.
In a safe system, we understand that even the most law-abiding road users will sometimes make mistakes. So, we double down on what we know from experience will work—such as well-designed and properly worn seat belts for all seating positions. We promote greater use of vehicle technologies that already exist, such as automatic emergency braking and lane departure technology.
Further, we should accelerate development and adoption of additional advanced driver assistance systems. For instance, NTSB recently recommended that manufacturers accelerate development and prioritize deployment of advanced impaired driving prevention technology and seek innovative ways to adapt existing technologies, such as driver monitoring systems, to combat alcohol-impaired driving. (See our Highway Investigation Report on a tragic crash resulting from alcohol impairment near Avenal, California.)
We know there are road designs that can create a safer environment for vulnerable road users—for example, separated bike lanes and separate traffic signal timing for pedestrians and motor vehicles. Because we know that injury severity is tied to kinetic energy, we need to rethink speed management. Our roadways are overdesigned to accommodate mobility, not safety. It is crucial to move forward using roadway design to better manage drivers’ safe speed and to rethink how speed limits are set.
Key to the Safe System Approach is shared responsibility and redundancy. Traffic safety tools available to us should be used in a comprehensive approach. Along with other methods and strategies, fair enforcement of traffic laws remains an important tool.
There are three areas where the dedication and professionalism of law enforcement are critical. First, high-quality crash investigations are an extremely important tool in a Safe System Approach. NTSB investigations are thorough, comprehensive, and time consuming. Consequently, we are only able to investigate a select few roadway crashes. That is why crash investigations conducted by the law enforcement community are essential. Although not all local crash investigations can be as comprehensive as those of NTSB, there are lessons to be gained from every investigation.
Second, crash data is a vital component in a Safe System Approach. State and local data is rolled up from individual police crash reports and compiled on a national level. Planners and policy makers need timely, complete, and high-quality data to make sound decisions. Good data helps us be more proactive in tackling traffic safety issues.
Third, fair and equitable enforcement of traffic safety laws is one of the many tools in a Safe System Approach. Despite decades of effort, impaired driving, speeding, and distracted driving remain among the greatest challenges to road safety. Appropriate enforcement of traffic safety laws, as part of the Safe System Approach, can increase safety for all road users.
To achieve our goal of zero road deaths, we must adopt a Safe System Approach and a shared responsibility for road safety. Government, auto makers, policy makers, planners, engineers, road users, and law enforcement all have a role to play in a safe system.
About the Author:
Thomas B. Chapman took the oath of office as the 46th Member of the National Transportation Safety Board on January 6, 2020. Member Chapman has spoken extensively on alcohol and drug impairment, rail worker and highway-rail grade crossing safety, and the Safe System Approach to highway traffic safety.
Prior to joining the Board, Member Chapman served six years as minority counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Aviation & Space. He engaged in a broad range of issues, including the bipartisan effort to pass comprehensive legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security Administration, and the NTSB. In total, Member Chapman has four decades of experience in government, legislative, and regulatory affairs in the transportation industry.

October 2022 Officer of the Month
Officer Blake Kelley
Tyler Police Department, Texas
MADD proudly recognizes Officer Blake Kelley of the Tyler Police Department as our Officer of the Month for October 2022. Officer Kelley joined the Tyler Police Department in 2016. He has a passion for traffic safety and impaired driving enforcement.
Officer Kelley dedicates his time to impaired driving enforcement. In 2019, he had 53 impaired driving arrests. In 2020, he was on track to beat the previous year's record but was unable to do so, due to an injury. In 2021, again due the injury, in only six months of enforcement work, he had 28 impaired driving arrests. To date, in 2022 he has 68 arrests.
Officer Kelley has been the recipient of MADD’s Outstanding Service Award for his impaired driving arrests in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
MADD National is proud to recognize Officer Blake Kelley as the October 2022 Officer of the Month. We thank him for his many years of dedicated service to the citizens of Tyler and the State of Texas. We wish him the best in safety and wellness in the remaining years of his career and service to the citizens of Tyler.
Thank you to Kathy Davidson, MADD East Texas Program Specialist, for her nomination of Officer Kelley for this recognition.
MADD extends our deepest condolences to the agencies and families who have lost officers and loved ones in the line of duty
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Patrolman Joseph Barlow succumbed to injuries received on March 17th, 2023, when he was struck head-on while escorting a funeral procession for a member of his department who had passed... Read More
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Deputy Sheriff Jeremy McCain succumbed to injuries received when his patrol car struck a gate at the Oklahoma Christian School at 4680 E 2nd Street in Edmund at 6:50 pm.... Read More
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Detective Sergeant Mason Griffith was shot and killed at Casey's Convenience Store at 115 Highway 19 in Hermann around 9:30 pm. Sergeant Griffith and another officer were responding to a... Read More
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K9 Lenin died after suffering a bite from a venomous snake while conducting training in the 5100 block of East Road in Baytown. His handler rush him to the Gulf Coast... Read More
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K9 Fredy suffered a fatal heart attack during training at 5:00 pm. While training at an off-site facility, K9 Fredy collapsed. Despite life-saving measures at the facility and the Red Bank... Read More
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Master Trooper James Bailey was struck and killed by a fleeing vehicle on I-69, south of Auburn, while attempting to deploy spike strips at about 4:30 pm. Trooper Bailey was performing... Read More
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Police Officer Andres Vasquez Lasso was shot and killed while responding to a domestic incident at 4:45 pm in the 5200 block of South Spaulding Avenue in the Gage Park... Read More
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Correctional Officer Jay Miller died from complications as the result of contracting COVID-19 while assigned to the Washington Corrections Center for Women at 9601 Bujacich Road in Gig Harbor. Officer... Read More
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K9 Duke was stabbed to death while attempting to apprehend a burglary suspect in a railyard in Tracy. Officers with the Tracy Police Department had responded to a burglary at the... Read More
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Detention Officer Kenneth Fowler succumbed to injuries sustained on January 31st, 2023, when he slipped on ice in the parking lot of the Pontotoc County Justice Center. The area was experiencing... Read More
For a complete listing of Officers lost in the line of duty, please visit: www.odmp.org
Resources
- MADD Roll Call Series | MADD Law Enforcement Impaired Driving Roll Call Video Series
- MADD’s 2021 Court Monitoring Report | Effective Court Monitoring
- MADD/Ipsos Poll | Consumers Support Drunk Driving Prevention Systems in Cars
- DRUG-IMPAIRED DRIVING ENFORCEMENT TRAINING (DIDET) | Get support for your DIDET program!
- Drug Impaired Driving Enforcement Training Opportunities Available | Training in Advanced Roadside Impaired Driving Enforcement (ARIDE) and as Drug Recognition Experts (DRE)
- Drugged Driving | Dangers of Prescription Drug Consumption and Driving
- MADD’s Marijuana Survey Report | Misconceptions about Marijuana Consumption and Driving
- Legislation | New York .05% BAC Vermont .05 Per Se Law Vermont ignition interlocks Vermont advanced technology
- NHTSA Traffic Safety Facts | Overview of Motor Vehicle Crashes in 2019
- NHTSA | State Alcohol-Impaired Driving Estimates for 2018
- NHTSA Early Estimates of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities | First Quarter of 2020
- NTHSA RFI | Available or late-stage technology under development for impaired driving detection and mitigation
- TOOFS | MADD and Waymo’s Tie-One-On For Safety Holiday Campaign
- 2021 National Lifesavers Conference | Register
- IACP | Traffic Enforcement During the COVID-19 Pandemic Processing DUIs during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Considerations for Law Enforcement Safe, Quick Clearance of Traffic Incidents toolkit Policy Framework for Improved Community-Police Engagement
- Warriors’ Ascent | Providing hope and healing to Veterans and First Responders suffering from Post Traumatic Stress