Abstract The NICC is a minority serving land grant institution with four campuses: The college’s Macy Campus is on the Omaha Reservation; the Santee Campus is on the Santee Reservation while the unban campus is in South Sioux City (all situated in USDOT Region 7). NICC also operates a fourth campus in conjunction with the Pawnee Nation in Oklahoma. Transportation safety is a major concern on Native American reservations. NICC will create a safe driving institute, offering free driver education and training on safe operation of personal and commercial vehicles. The project will create safer travel conditions on reservations and alleviate the acute nationwide commercial motor vehicle driver shortage.
Description "1. Arrange with MATC to conduct a traffic assessment for baseline data
2. Hire a safe driver academy instructor
3. Acquire necessary equipment for the project.
4. Create the curriculum for the CDL program and the safe driver academy.
5. Create, publicize and instruct the curriculum."
Objective The project goal is to create a driving institute at the Nebraska Indian Community College. The driving institute will offer at no charge to students, during the life of the project, to be trained how to drive personal and commercial vehicles. The commercial driving school and safe driver academy will be able to train safe drivers using the best practices in defensive driving utilizing the latest materials and instructional materials.
Impacts/Benefits "The intended outcomes involve safety improvement on Native American Reservations through student driver training and
workforce development that results in gainful employment in the transportation industry.
The research will result in wealth creation for Native Americans in the region. Over the
course of the grant period, the project will address regional and national commercial motor vehicle driver shortage and contribute to Justice40."