Once again, the Indiana Borough Police Department is the recipient of an award from AAA East Central for its traffic safety efforts.

“Acknowledging that motor vehicle crashes in western Pennsylvania are a major cause of property damage, injury and death each year, AAA East Central, through its Community Safety Awards Program, strives to promote safe driving habits,” Indiana Police Chief Justin Schawl told borough council at its Tuesday meeting.

“On Nov. 4, AAA East Central, comprised of 81 offices in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, awarded the Indiana Borough Police Department with its prestigious Community Traffic Safety Platinum Award,” Schawl said.

Police Sgt. Eric J. Slovinsky has been a key player in the police department’s effort to lower the number of traffic accidents.

Schawl said Slovinsky “is specifically recognized for his leadership in the arena of traffic and pedestrian safety, which includes enhanced educational and engineering efforts in addition to enforcement.”Those efforts include keeping records of how many traffic accidents have occurred.

“Since the chief took over it was our goal to have a traffic accident reduction every month,” Slovinsky told council. “That was our big push this year. Every month we’ve been able to lower that.”And as Schawl stressed to council, “all patrol officers are hereby recognized and thanked for their individual enforcement efforts contributing to our sustained organizational effectiveness.”

Indiana first was honored with a platinum award in 2008. It has won the award each year since then.

This article was published in the Indiana Gazette on December 4th, 2019.