The Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA) selected CS to produce a report providing actionable guidance on how State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) and their partners can conduct highway safety planning and implement behavioral safety measures within the Safe System framework to significantly decrease traffic fatalities. We’re excited to partner with GHSA to release this critically important work.
The most recent federal estimates for U.S. traffic fatalities for 2021 are on track to exceed 40,000 for the first time in more than a decade.
How can our industry and the public work together to help reduce this number?
Why use the Safe System Approach?
Safe System: an exciting, promising, achievable and comprehensive approach to highway safety
Safe System, a safety framework first implemented abroad, has been linked to up to an 80% reduction in traffic-related fatalities. The Safe System approach encourages transportation agencies, educators, advocates, and many other stakeholders to proactively identify the potential risks in advance, collaborate, and implement strategies to mitigate those risks.
Successful applications in the U.S. point to the importance of behavioral safety
In the U.S., partners leading the adoption of the Safe System approach corroborate the important role of behavioral safety in successful implementation. Behavioral strategies and programs, including education and enforcement, are essential for encouraging more responsible road use and are an equally vital part of reducing fatalities and serious injuries.
A new framework for State Highway Safety Offices
The report provides the Behavioral Safety Safe System Framework which demonstrates how the Safe System approach can be effectively integrated across SHSO operations (leadership, communication, policy and collaboration) and SHSO programs in the context of the four E’s of safety (education, enforcement, engineering, and emergency response), plus equity and evaluation.
To investigate the critical role of behavioral safety, CS performed an extensive literature review of successful U.S. and international Safe System practices and facilitated discussions with experts representing SHSOs, law enforcement, transportation safety organizations, universities, and federal agencies.
