2. Vision: A highway system free of fatalities, changing the nation’s culture to the point where even one traffic-related death is unacceptable
Toward Zero Deaths: A National Strategy on Highway Safety is the nation’s zero-based traffic safety vision document, adopted by AASHTO as the official safety vision for state highway transportation agencies.
The National Strategy provides a single vision for safety stakeholders nationwide. It's a vision to drive individual and collaborative efforts. The vision is a highway system free of fatalities. That means changing the nation’s culture until even one traffic-related death is unacceptable.

3. TZD Emphasis Areas Drivers and Passengers Vulnerable Users Vehicles
The TZD National Strategy covers six emphasis areas where safety culture is needed. The emphasis areas involve road users, vehicles and the roadway environment or infrastructure. Each contributes to risk and provides opportunities for mitigating risk. They include factors contributing to a crash or crashes before, during and after crashes. And the National Strategy outlines ideas for short-, mid- and long-term improvements in each emphasis area.
The six areas are:
• Drivers and passengers
• Vulnerable users
• Vehicles
• Infrastructure
• Emergency medical services (EMS)
• Safety management and data processes
Infrastructure
Emergency Medical Services
Safety Management

4. Stakeholders
A broad base of stakeholders developed the National Strategy.
These stakeholders represent wide-ranging interests, including public education, medical services, transportation, law enforcement and business.
And if we are to succeed in reducing fatalities, it will take the combined effort of everyone.

5. Participants Advocacy groups Public health Elected officials
Private industry
Emergency services
Road users
Infrastructure
Vehicle manufacturing
Law enforcement
Workplace safety
We have many participants of TZD beyond state and highway agencies. Since 2014, hundreds of groups and individuals have signed on as TZD participants (378 as of 4/27/18).
Participants support the Toward Zero Death national strategy and vision and work to implement its concepts in their area.
The Participants of TZD intentionally covers a broad group of disciplines. By being as inclusive as possible with the TZD strategy, we leverage contributions from professionals in the fields outside of our own to address the circumstances that contribute to crashes in a universal, holistic manner.
By involving many community groups and interested stakeholders in implementation, we’re also building a safety culture with a zero-fatalities vision.

6. Zero-Focused Traffic Safety Programs
Currently, there are three national programs focused on reducing traffic fatalities to zero—Toward Zero Deaths (TZD), Vision Zero and Road to Zero. While these approaches to reaching zero use different names, they are complementary efforts that support the shared goal of safe mobility for all people. This collaboration of unified programs promotes a multi-disciplinary approach, meaning they encourage involvement from a variety of stakeholders. The engagement happens across the country, throughout state and local organizations, and within communities large and small that all focus on the goal of zero traffic-related deaths.
Some similarities between the programs are shown here:
- Goal of zero traffic-related injuries and deaths
Involving multiple disciplines in their efforts
Broad sets stakeholders from local to national in scope
Safety culture is an important part of achieving a zero-focused goal
Each program has a few distinctive features. For example:
The TZD National Strategy, as AASHTO’s national strategy on safety, is incorporated into state highway safety plans.
Vision Zero requires the engagement and accountability of local officials
You’ve heard about Road to Zero today, and some of their specific focuses like the grant program and the autonomous vehicle initiative.

7. Current TZD Priorities
Safety Culture Do More of What Works
This past year, we’ve heard from AASHTO members and TZD participants that they’re looking for support in two main areas:
- Establishing safety culture in their communities and states
Helping them do more of what works in preventing traffic-related injuries and fatalities.
To make progress toward a zero-based goal, we as an American culture need to change our attitudes about highway safety. We refer to this as safety culture.  
From a professional or organizational perspective, changing the safety culture would ensure safety impacts are considered during decision making that affects any portion of the roadway transportation network and its operation, as well as how employees within an organization are considering safety in their decisions about using roads.
It also means working with the road users, leading them to understand the potential results of their actions or inactions. They need to believe that they must base their decisions primarily on safety.
To do more of what works, AASHTO members and TZD participants have asked for more best practices, case studies and peer exchanges of successful outcomes from initiatives that have saved lives. They’d like more support in how to successfully engage decision makers and stakeholders, and they’d like more resources for communication and outreach.

8. NCHRP (110)
Development of Resources to Support State DOT Communications on Safety
presented to
presented by
AASHTO Committee on Safety
Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
Robert E. Hull, P.E.
May 8, 2018

9. The Project Purpose
Research on the current state of road safety communications
Six pilot states
Maine
Virginia
South Carolina
Michigan
Colorado
California
Cambridge Systematics conducted research to identify ways state Departments of Transportation (DOT) could improve internal and external communications on road safety and safety culture.
The team identified six pilot states who provided insight into their own road safety communications efforts.
To ensure a broad range of perspectives, we requested participation from
the state safety engineer,
a representative from the DOT public information/communications office, and
a representative from the state highway safety office (HSO).
Each of these individuals play a role in safety communications and it was instructive to obtain specific information on how they view safety communications and safety culture and their role in improving the situation.

10. The Project Goal Answer the following:
What is working?
What isn’t working?
How to increase involvement by state safety engineers
How to improve coordination between DOT and HSO
Understand internal and external communication efforts
To date the research has involved the following:
Interviews with the state safety engineer, the head of the state highway safety office, and an individual from the DOT public information office in each of the six states;
A review of each state’s website and any specific safety page;
An assessment of social media activities;
A review of research and other information that indicates what constitutes successful road safety communications; and
A peer exchange involving the majority of the peer state participants along with a number of members from the NCHRP Research Panel.

11. Road Safety Communications
Our research showed the following trends:
DOTs generally view safety from a targeted perspective and inform the public mainly about work zone safety, upcoming construction, congestion, and weather events.
Several state DOT websites reference safety on the home page but few feature the topic prominently making it easy for users to find information on safety right when they go to the DOT website.
Social media is a viable and effective way to dialogue with the public. Both DOTs and HSOs extensively use Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
DOTs tend to use these channels to announce upcoming work projects or inform the public about major traffic tie-ups or inclement weather.
There are a number DOT and HSO videos on YouTube channels, but it is not clear how agencies publicize the availability of videos except for internally.

12. The Role of the Safety Engineer
We found that state safety engineers have not played a major role in promoting road safety communications.
There are few examples of how safety engineers are proactive in promoting safety messages to DOT public information offices. However, safety engineers can be important subject matter experts for road safety communications.
This example shows Caltrans featuring an engineer in a YouTube video on a safety topic. Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, and Wyoming also have videos featuring safety engineers on their YouTube channels.

13. DOT and HSO Communication and Coordination
The relationship between the DOT and HSO is important given the amount of safety communications conducted by the HSO. From the research, we learned:
There is little coordination between the DOT and the HSO on road safety communications except for the display of road safety messages on variable message signs.
DOTs believe the level of coordination is good while most HSOs do not.
HSOs and DOTs view their communication roles as separate from each other. For HSOs that are in other agencies such as Departments of Public Safety, those offices will rely on their agency’s public information office and not reach out to the DOT as often.
In several instances, the two agencies promoted different safety messages at the same time, which could dilute the effectiveness of both messages.
These examples show DOTs promoting HSO safety messaging through a website, news media event and variable message sign.

14. Guidebook Coming Summer 2018
Internal and external road safety communications
The role of safety engineers
Cooperation and coordination between the DOT and HSO
Recommendations for ways to improve DOT safety communication
As the final phase of the NCHRP project, the team is developing a guidebook.
The guidebook will contain information about:
Current internal and external road safety communications practices;
The role of the safety engineers in road safety communications efforts;
The level of cooperation and coordination between the DOT and HSO on road safety communications; and
Recommendations for ways to improve DOT road safety communications.
The guidebook will be available through NCHRP later this summer.