Traffic Safety Culture: Related Publications and Websites

The Behavioral Traffic Safety Cooperative Research Program (BTSCRP) provides practical solutions to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce costs of road traffic crashes associated with unsafe behaviors. BTSCRP addresses topics such as distracted and impaired driving, speeding, characteristics of younger and older drivers, and law enforcement.

NCHRP Research Report 1091: Traffic Safety Culture Research Roadmap, from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program, presents a research roadmap for promoting traffic safety culture among state departments of transportation and other transportation safety agencies.

This project aimed to improve traffic safety culture through displaying traffic safety videos in waiting areas at motor vehicle division driver license stations and county treasurer offices. The project had three phases: 1) pre-deployment planning, 2) deployment, and 3) evaluation and support. The videos reached a broad demographic including those that are the focus of MDTs media campaigns. The location of the television significantly influenced whether or not the videos were viewed; the location behind staff entering data is preferred.

The guide is a basic reference to assist State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) in selecting effective, evidence-based countermeasures for traffic safety problem areas. These areas include: Alcohol- and Drug-Impaired Driving; Seat Belts and Child Restraints; Speeding and Speed Management; Distracted Driving; Motorcycle Safety; Young Drivers; Older Drivers; Pedestrian Safety; Bicycle Safety; and Drowsy Driving. The guide: describes major strategies and countermeasures that are relevant to SHSOs; summarizes strategy/countermeasure use, effectiveness, costs, and implementation time; and provides references to the most important research summaries and individual studies.

This project aimed to determine if excessive device use while driving is the result of an addiction, why this behavior persists, and what countermeasures to consider. This Traffic Tech briefly summarizes it. Reviewers consulted academic, government, and private-sector material from several disciplines including human factors, traffic safety, psychology, and demography. More than 270 sources were reviewed with 155 critically reviewed using a structured document summary template. Reviewers found that electronic device use did not qualify for the formal definition of addiction described in DSM-5 since device users are not proven to demonstrate every aspect of addiction. However, excessive device use can mimic aspects of addiction since dependent users report a craving for their phone, they rely on mobile phones to relieve distress, and their emotions are highly influenced by their phones.

Human behavior and errors in human judgment account for a large proportion of roadway crashes in the United States. Most priorities in Louisiana’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan involve human behavior. A comprehensive understanding of highway safety culture throughout Louisiana’s regions will enhance the state’s public outreach and education efforts to reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads. Although efforts have been made to assess overall traffic safety culture at the national level, research at the state level for Louisiana has been limited and typically involves a single emphasis area such as alcohol-involved driving. This project expanded upon this research by assessing behavioral factors related to highway safety across multiple emphasis areas including impaired driving, distracted driving, speeding, and seatbelt use.

The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Web-Only Document 324: Guide to Implementation of the Toward Zero Deaths National Strategy on Highway Safety details the status of a committed and sustained collaboration among all highway safety stakeholders, as well as for reaching out to new partners who have not previously engaged in these efforts. In addition, this strategy places emphasis on promoting a positive traffic safety culture for organizations and society that supports the TZD vision.

What gets measured, gets improved. With respect to the safety and health of Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) employees, the primary metric used has been the OSHA recordable incident rate. This incident rate measures how often a Cabinet employee sustains an injury that demands more than basic first aid. This metric is important for understanding injury frequencies, but it does not assist with management of the safety, health, and overall well-being of KYTC personnel. Based on a review of leading safety indicators adopted by various industries, this study devised a comprehensive list of safety metrics the Cabinet will benefit from tracking. Metrics were evaluated, organized, weighted, and compiled into a three-tier scorecard that is used to assess performance at KYTC’s district, area, and executive levels.

The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 968: LED Roadway Lighting: Impact on Driver Sleep Health and Alertness seeks to determine the impact of LED roadway lighting on driver sleep health and alertness.

This study examined the behaviors and culture (e.g., shared values and beliefs) associated with driving under the influence of cannabis and alcohol of a representative sample of adults in Washington State...This study examined the relationship between attitudes, behavioral beliefs, perceived injunctive and descriptive norms, perceived control beliefs, values, and assumptions and driving within 2 hr of consuming cannabis and alcohol.

An increasing number of regional and local transportation agencies across the country are adopting transportation safety plans with a vision to eliminate traffic fatalities. This document provides references to key information for metropolitan planning organizations and local communities to understand the safety planning process and develop their own local or regional safety plan.

GHSA's Drug-Impaired Driving: Marijuana and Opioids Raise Critical Issues for States presents new research to examine the impact of marijuana and opioids on driving ability and provides recommendations on how best to address these emerging challenges.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Web-Only Document 252: A Strategic Approach to Transforming Traffic Safety Culture to Reduce Deaths and Injuries provides guidance on developing a strategic approach to transform the traffic safety culture of road users and stakeholders. The goal is to use this approach to sustain improvements in traffic safety for all road users, including non-motorized users. For the purpose of this project, traffic safety culture is defined as the values and beliefs shared among groups of road users and stakeholders that influence their decisions to behave or act in ways that affect traffic safety.

The main objective of this research was to provide guidance to the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) in establishing strategies to improve the traffic safety culture in Kansas. This was done by analyzing crash data with respect to the seven coalition districts in Kansas.

All states have developed Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSP), and many states have updated their plans at least once. Each SHSP has a highway fatality reduction goal, and several states have set their goals at zero. The scan team examines practices in states, counties, metropolitan areas and municipalities that have highway safety goals of zero fatalities.

The purpose of this project was to quantitatively evaluate the relationships between MDT's occupant protection program activities and seat restraint usage throughout Montana, in an effort to clarify how MDT's occupant protection programs may affect seat restraint use.

The purpose of this project was to implement a peer-to-peer driver’s safety program designed for high school students. This project builds upon an effective peer-to-peer outreach effort in Texas entitled Teens in the Driver Seat (TDS), the nation’s first peer-to-peer driving safety program run by teens for teens. This program is based on the idea that teens will pay more attention to ideas that are presented by their peers than to those that come from adults. The peer-to-peer traffic safety campaign program empowers high school students to create methods of outreach to their peers. The implementation of this project followed that of the TDS high school program developed by the Texas Transportation Institute, and was assessed using a case–control experimental design across two urban and two rural Montana high schools that included approximately 2,700 students.

Founded in 1947, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety is a nonprofit, publicly supported charitable research and education organization dedicated to saving lives by preventing traffic crashes and reducing injuries when crashes occur.

Managers and staff at the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) are responsible for research and technology (R&T), particularly in functional areas that develop and set the R&T agenda for that subject, focus, or program area. "Safety Research" is one such functional area that the FHWA focuses on.

The FMCSA is a federal government agency responsible for regulating and providing safety oversight of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs). FMCSA's mission is to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses.

Administered by the FHWA, the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) is a core Federal-aid program that aims to achieve a significant reduction in traffic fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads, including non-State-owned roads and roads on tribal land. The FHWA offers free, custom-tailored technical assistance to States on policy, program, and technical issues relating to the HSIP, SHSP, RHCP, and Safety Performance Management.

MSU's Center for Health and Safety Culture is an interdisciplinary center serving communities and organizations through research, training, and support services to cultivate healthy and safe cultures. The Center is dedicated to applying research to develop sustainable solutions to complex social problems.

Funded by the FHWA, the National Center for Rural Road Safety aims to empower as many state, local, and tribal agencies as possible with the most effective safety tools and strategies that are currently available. Building on a growing body of multi-disciplinary research, best practices and successful deployments in rural environments, the Safety Center is poised to help agencies with their immediate rural road safety challenges.

The NHTSA is a federal organization which aims to save lives, prevent injuries, and reduce economic costs due to road traffic crashes, through education, research, safety standards, and enforcement.

Part of the US DOT, the NHTSA studies behaviors and attitudes in highway safety, focusing on drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and motorcyclists. The organization aims to identify and measure behaviors involved in crashes or associated with injuries, and to develop and refine countermeasures to deter unsafe behaviors and promote safe alternatives.

Operated in cooperation with the FHWA and Texas A&M Transporation Institute, The National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse is dedicated to providing the transportation construction industry and the general public with comprehensive information to improve motorist, worker and pedestrian safety in roadway work zones.

FHWA has developed a wide variety of resources to help states develop, implement, evaluate, and promote their SHSPs, as well as additional guidance on related topics, FAQs, and other information that can help states improve their SHSP processes.

Led by the TZD Steering Committee, the National Strategy on Highway Safety provides a platform of consistency for state agencies, private industry, national organizations and others to develop safety plans that prioritize traffic safety culture and promote the national TZD vision.

Several states have asked to use the Zero Fatalities television ads, print creative, and other elements of the program.