Inaugural VACP Law Enforcement Roadway Safety Champion Awards Presented

PHOTO GALLERY

This inaugural presentation will recognize agencies, teams, or individuals with six award categories. They are:

• Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) of the Year
• Occupant Protection Champion Award
• Crash Investigation Champion Award
• Roadway Safety Leadership Award Year
• Roadway Safety Innovation Award
• Public Information Champion Award

2024-25 VACP President Chief Scott Booth (Roanoke) presented the awards. 

Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) of the Year
The DRE of the Year award is presented to an individual member of the Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) program who has demonstrated a commitment to enforcement, education, and community engagement to help decrease the incidents of impaired driving.  The recipient may be a DRE Instructor who has demonstrated superior knowledge, teaching ability, and dedication to advancing the field of impaired driving enforcement.   

The 2025 recipient is Commander Cara Jacobs, Roanoke County Police Department.  

Commander Jacobs is a wonderful ambassador of the DRE program and has been a leader in the program since its inception in Virginia.  She has been instrumental in bringing together all levels of law enforcement to grow the program to what it is today.  Her groundbreaking work has brought together law enforcement agencies, Commonwealth Attorneys, Judges, and many other community stakeholders.  She taught at several DRE Schools throughout the Commonwealth in 2024 and it should be noted she was nominated by not only her own department, but also the leadership in the Department of Forensic Science, the leadership with the Commonwealth’s Attorney Service Council, two individual officers, and an Asst. Commonwealth's Attorney.

Occupant Protection Champion Award
This award is presented to an individual, team, or agency who understands that many people killed in crashes are unrestrained. The individual or team has shown an outstanding commitment to education, awareness, and enforcement of child passenger safety and safety belt laws. Recipients may include CPS Technicians and Instructors who have shown an outstanding commitment to training and community education.

The 2025 recipient is the New Kent County Sheriff’s Office.

The New Kent County Sheriff’s Office has a long history of Occupant Protection education and enforcement.  During the past year, they have participated in child safety seat check events, seat belt and child safety seat belt education in county schools, day cares, and community events.  They have partnered with the Henrico County Police Division, VCU Children’s Hospital, and SafeKids Virginia with two joint seat checks in 2024.  The Sheriff’s Office has a permanent safety seat check station and currently has nine certified technicians and one certified instructor.  They are fully engaged with seat belt enforcement during Click It or Ticket Campaigns.   The Sheriff’s Office also partners with the Samuel Family at the Devin Samuel Truck and Car Show to promote seat belt awareness.   This large annual event honors the memory of Devin Samuel who died in a horrific crash.  

Crash Investigation Champion Award
This award is presented to an individual or team who understands that investigating and reconstructing crash scenes is vital to enduring just resolution in criminal cases. This awardee has shown exemplary commitment to investigating fatality and severe injury crashes, instruction, community education, and collaboration with other roadway safety stakeholders. 

The 2025 recipient is the Henrico County Police Crash Team.

This category by far was the most competitive with highly trained professionals who are often the unsung heroes in an agency. All nominations were worthy of the award, but the Henrico Crash Team stood out.  

The Henrico County Police Crash Team responded to 48 crashes in 2024. The team worked closely with the Commonwealth's Attorney’s office to bring several prosecutable cases to a close. The team provides PSAs to community members, conducts distracted driving classes in county schools, and actively participates in traffic safety enforcement saturation patrols and DUI/DUID checkpoints. They work in partnerships and assist neighboring jurisdictions with crash investigations and vehicle downloads with their comprehensive library of vehicle cables. The team is highly trained and regularly attends refresher classes to remain proficient and learn new trends in crash investigations.  Three members are also DRE-certified and are members of the DRE instructor cadre.  They participate in campaigns such as Click It or Ticket, Never Safe on Two wheels, and the County “WOAH” (Watch Out Ahead Henrico) pedestrian safety campaign.  

Roadway Safety Leadership Award
This award recognizes a law enforcement supervisor or command staff member who is a driving force in making roadway safety a high priority focus of his or her department. 

Two individuals stood out as true leaders in their agencies, so we are recognizing both of them today.

The first 2025 recipient is Asst. Chief Robert Blakley, Fairfax County Police Department.

Assistant Chief Blakley developed a new Fairfax County Police initiative known as "Road Shark". This initiative was focused on aggressively targeting dangerous and reckless drivers. As part of "Road Shark", FCPD partnered with the Virginia State Police (VSP) in northern Virginia to conduct four week-long waves of enforcement. Asst. Chief Blakley also conducted press briefings to educate and inform the community about Road Shark.

Asst. Chief Blakley conducts monthly meetings with the operational commanders in the FCPD where he reinforces the importance of traffic safety and enforcement. To further demonstrate his commitment, Asst. Chief Blakley allocates additional officers to the Traffic Division, which includes the Crash Reconstruction Unit and the Motor Squad even when agency staffing is limited.

Asst. Chief Blakley also brought back the Department’s Chief’s Challenge Awards.  These awards recognizes the district station that prioritizes roadway safety, enforcement, and community education.  

Asst. Chief Blakley is a member of, or is involved with, numerous traffic safety groups both regionally and nationally. He routinely recommends new training for officers to attend and has hosted several roadway safety training schools at FCPD.

Asst. Chief Blakley does all of this on top of his regular duties as an Assistant Chief. He doesn’t just order others to make traffic safety a priority — he routinely conducts traffic stops as he drives to meetings and other engagements. 

The second 2025 recipient is Captain Warren Gosnell, Frederick County Sheriff’s Office.

Captain Gosnell served as the Sheriff’s Traffic Safety Coordinator throughout 2024. He oversees all highway safety grants, educational initiatives, and all DUI/DUID enforcement and checkpoints. He is the recipient of the Governor’s Transportation Award and was awarded the Meritorious Conduct Award for his actions to end the pursuit of an armed and active shooter suspect. 

Captain Gosnell works alongside this team and other deputies in ongoing traffic enforcement efforts and initiatives.  He has led his team in several call-outs for fatal and serious injury crashes.  

Captain Gosnell continues to engage and educate the community. He serves as the Sheriff’s Office's Public Information Officer (PIO) and he created and ran his own traffic safety Facebook page — "Frederick County Roads/Traffic" — where he has gained close to 6,000 followers.  He also co-hosts a public service broadcast of “Traffic Safety Thursdays” every month.          

Captain Gosnell still finds time to train in speed measurement and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing (SFST).  He is also a faculty member of the Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Council and trains prosecutors and law enforcement in Advanced DUI/DUID training classes.  

Captain Gosnell also leads from the front and by example.  He responds to serious roadways crashes and he fully participates in Click It or Ticket, Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over, and the local “Arrive Alive” initiatives. In 2024, he remained proactive in writing 310 traffic summonses and over 250 warnings.  He remains in the top 10 in traffic enforcement in addition to his administrative responsibilities as third in command of a 150-member agency.

Roadway Safety Innovation Award
This award recognizes an individual, team, or agency for innovative enforcement, education, technology, and/or community engagement programs to enhance roadway safety in their community. 

The 2025 recipient is the Virginia State Police YOVASO Team. 

The Distracted Driving Simulator is a program of Youth of Virginia Speak Out About Traffic Safety (YOVASO), which is a grant-funded youth traffic safety program with the Virginia State Police. The simulator team stands out as the best candidate for this award due to their innovative approach, unwavering dedication, and impactful leadership in promoting distracted driving awareness through the golf cart simulator program. This program uniquely blends technology, education, and community engagement to deliver a hands-on, immersive experience that effectively communicates the dangers of unsafe driving behaviors.

The Distracted Driving Simulator hands-on program gives students the ability to experience first-hand the real-world dangers of distracted driving while in a safe and controlled environment.

What sets this program apart is the trooper engagement with youth, plus the uniqueness of the simulator that replicates real-life driving challenges along with common high-risk distractions such as cell phone use, multiple passengers, loud radio, and outside distractions. The trooper’s engagement with youth fosters an open dialogue between youth and law enforcement, building trust and encouraging honest conversations about responsibility and safety. Such interaction is vital in cultivating a culture of respect and awareness among young drivers, as well as improving the relationship between law enforcement and the public.

The Distracted and Impaired Driving Simulator Program has been highly successful and is a focus of the Department’s and YOVASO’s commitment to highway safety and to providing safe driving and passenger safety educational programs for youth. During 2024, troopers completed 101 Distracted Driving Simulator events which reached over 15,000 students across the commonwealth. A total of 233 troopers worked on the events and contributed a combined total of 2,085 volunteer hours to the program.

While the 2025 Roadway Safety Innovation Award is presented to the entire YOVASO team, the VACP would like to specifically acknowledge VSP Div. 5 Coordinator Sgt. Tremaine Peterson who was nominated individually for going above and beyond leading his team in the greater Hampton Roads area. 

Public Information Champion Award
This award recognizes the individual public information officer or team who demonstrates innovative ways to raise awareness of roadway safety initiatives and to educate the community on roadway and pedestrian safety.  

The 2025 recipient is the Fairfax County Police Public Affairs Bureau.

The Public Affairs Bureau has created an innovative and highly effective approach to promoting roadway safety on social media. Through creative use of Instagram reels, the team transforms real body worn camera and in-car camera footage into public education content that resonates with all viewer ages.  The team’s work stands out through its creativity, leadership, dedication, and impact by embracing new ways to tackle roadway safety messaging.  

The team has committed themselves to ensuring the community is well informed about all roadway safety.  They proactively go out into the field to conduct traffic stops on drivers engaging in dangerous driving behavior, and piece together videos of the interaction as training tools. The FCPD achieved remarkable measurable impact through its roadway safety-focused Instagram content in 2024 and into 2025.  They produced traffic reels in a span of 90 days that reached approximately 9.3 million views and 328,000 likes.  The highest performing reel included 1.7 million views and 66,000 likes. Their messaging is very engaging yet serious, effectively balancing entertainment with education to change driver behavior.  

Congratulations to all of the 2025 VACP Roadway Safety Champions!

The VACP would like to congratulate and express our sincere gratitude to all of our 2025 Roadway Safety Champions for their continuous dedication and hard work in keeping our communities and roadways safe!