Road Safety Programs

At 437 pages, this is not a short reference document. Produced by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Adminstration, the publication is meant to be a basic reference for State Highway Safety Offices to help them select effective, evidence-based countermeasures for traffic safety problem areas:

According to the introduction, this package details key evidence-based measures identified by many of the world’s leading road safety experts and their agencies as those most likely to impact road traffic deaths and injuries in the short and long term. They relate to: speed management, infrastructure design, vehicle safety, laws and their enforcement, emergency post-crash care and leadership on road safety.

Yes, it's time to consider going back to school again this year. Will it be safe for our children to go to and from school each day?

Somewhere in British Columbia an unsafe situation will be identified and someone will try to do something about it. Understanding what traffic engineers will consider may significantly increase the chances of successfully implementing a change.

This week ICBC rolled out a new road safety campaign called Drive Smart. It's aimed at increasing driver knowledge, promoting staying focused while driving and looking out for the safety of other road users. There is also a special social media hashtag: #KnowYourPartBC.

The following video is part of the Western Cape Government's Safely Home initiative. The It Can Wait campaign hopes to discourage drivers from using their cell phones while operating their vehicles. For those of us who think that we can safely multi-task while driving the site has this to say:

B.C.'s Graduated Licensing Program (GLP) was implemented to develop driving skills in a safe, step by step manner. Today, they are a widely accepted, effective safety measure. The system of restrictions that have been evaluated have been found to be very effective in reducing crashes and injuries, and public acceptance is high.

A survey of municipalities in 2015 found that they were interesting in having more knowledge on road safety planning, safety designs, and strategies. The toolkit will be built and distributed as part of the province's Vision Zero initiative and is intended for all agencies with a mandate related to road safety.

Our provincial government has announced an update of the Road Safety Strategy 2015 to adopt a Vision Zero approach to road safety using a Safe Systems model. This means "that road safety developments must account for the inevitability of human error, limitations of the human body in withstanding force, and the responsibility of road and vehicle designers, policy makers and road users for road safety."

The Traffic Injury Research Foundation announces the release of a community based toolkit for road safety campaigns. The kit is meant to assist a community in the creation of an effective road safety campaign that focuses on issues of local concern.

I've just finished reading Eliminating Serious Injury and Death From Road Transport and find myself in agreement with much of its content. The time I've spent in traffic law enforcement and the investigation of a large number of collisions has shown me that many of them are suffered by people just like you and me.