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TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations (2010)

Chapter: 3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States

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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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Suggested Citation:"3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countriesand the United States." Transportation Research Board. 2010. TRB Special Report 300 - Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/13046.
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3 National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States T his chapter describes safety practices in other countries that have been credited with producing substantial and rapid reductions in highway deaths. Also described are examples of U.S. efforts at the national level to develop the capabilities that appear to be important in other nations’ programs. The first section below summarizes several past international surveys of safety programs by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) and others that attempted to define the common features of successful programs. The reviews have been influential in drawing attention in the United States to the methods and the successes in other countries. The second describes the features of selected major initiatives in France, Australia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom to illustrate the general features that the past reviews identified. The third describes several recent national-level initiatives to strengthen and reform U.S. traffic safety programs, some of which were influenced by awareness of practices in other countries. These include USDOT-sponsored multistate demonstrations of anti–drunk driving and speed control campaigns and new approaches to safety planning in the states promoted by USDOT and by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), as reviewed in reports of USDOT and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP). These sources provide a basis for comparison of U.S. state and federal safety programs with those of other countries and indicate the challenges of applying methods used in other countries in the U.S. context. COMMON ELEMENTS OF BENCHMARK NATIONS’ SAFETY PROGRAMS Chapter 1 cited reports of several U.S. expert groups, sponsored by USDOT and AASHTO, that have surveyed traffic safety practices in other countries with the goal of identifying the essential components of successful programs. At least 10 such groups in the past decade have studied aspects of safety programs or of general management practices (e.g., performance measurement) that are essential elements of safety programs (FHWA 2009c). Boxes 3-1, 3-2, and 3-3 present lists of components as compiled in these reports. These U.S. syntheses highlight largely the same program elements as the comparison of international practices by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Working Group on Achieving Ambitious Road Safety Targets (Box 3-4). A detailed specification of the elements of road safety management is provided in the World Bank’s Country Guidelines for the Conduct of Road Safety Management Capacity Reviews and the Specification of Lead Agency Reforms, Investment Strategies and Safe System Projects (Bliss and Breen 2009). The guidelines define a process for countries receiving World Bank assistance to follow in creating a program that reduces traffic casualties. They are based on the recommendations of the United Nations’ World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention (Peden et al. 2004) and on in-depth analyses of safety program organization in seven countries (summarized in the document). The guidelines strongly emphasize the essential step of 51

52 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations identifying a lead agency in government and endowing it with the necessary powers, resources, and responsibility. The lead agency is to “guide the national road safety effort, with the power to make decisions, manage resources and coordinate the efforts of all participating sectors of government” (Bliss and Breen 2009, 16). Box 3-1 Lessons from a Decade of Safety Scanning Tours A summary by Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) safety professionals of the experience of more than a dozen FHWA–AASHTO safety scanning tours conducted over the past decade highlighted five lessons that U.S. states can apply to improve highway safety (Baxter et al. 2005): 1. A top-down commitment by the political leadership is essential for reducing fatalities. Leadership is required to provide direction, accountability, and resources. 2. A “safe systems” approach—that is, identifying the causal factors of crashes in the jurisdiction so that specific strategies can be implemented in response—is a valuable method of planning the program of countermeasures to be applied. This approach will often lead to multidisciplinary countermeasure strategies (e.g., combining actions to change driver behavior with road design improvements). 3. A collaborative process of planning and implementation, reaching out to all relevant agencies and to interested nongovernmental groups, contributes to success. In the United States, this lesson implies that collaboration between the states and local governments, allowing local input to planning and providing local governments with training and assistance, will be vital. 4. Successful national safety strategies are based on a “business approach”; that is, management entails defining objectives, quantifying results, and showing cost-effectiveness. 5. Innovative concepts developed abroad would have safety payoffs if applied in the United States. Examples include the European and Australian Road Assessment Programs and road designs on the principle of the “self-organizing roadway” that are being applied in some European countries—features such as intersection roundabouts that naturally induce drivers to operate their vehicles in a safer manner.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 53 Box 3-2 Steps to Better Safety Management Through Performance Measurement A 2004 FHWA–AASHTO scanning tour of Australia, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand observed the use of performance measures in transportation planning and decision making. The study panel concluded that “transportation agencies in the countries visited use performance measures for setting priorities and making investment and management decisions to a greater extent than is typical in the United States” and that “the most impressive application of performance management [was] in road safety, where it was used to identify strategies to reduce fatalities” (MacDonald et al. 2004, ii). The panel attributed these countries’ success in reducing road fatalities primarily to systematic management practices founded on goal setting, quantitative performance evaluation, and accountability for results (MacDonald et al. 2004, 60). The panel identified eight steps that were common to the approaches to safety management in the countries visited (MacDonald et al. 2004, 60–67): 1. Understand the problem. Successful safety programs rely on systematic data collection, analysis, and research to understand the most important crash causes and risk factors on the country’s roads. 2. Establish institutional leadership, responsibility, and accountability. Success was associated with direct engagement of the most senior level of government administration and close coordination among the responsible agencies, including transportation agencies, police, and courts. 3. Define desired outcomes. Successful programs have established quantitative targets for total casualties and for specific categories of risks (e.g., high crash frequency locations, young drivers, alcohol-related crashes). 4. Identify performance indicators. Indicators are measures of the desired ultimate outcomes (reduced fatalities, injuries, and crashes) and measures of organizational outputs that are expected to lead to these outcomes (e.g., numbers of enforcement actions taken, frequency of violations of speed limits and other road regulations). 5. Compare performance with experiences of other jurisdictions. Benchmarking is an aid in setting goals and revealing potential problems. 6. Implement a systematic safety data collection and analysis process. Information systems in successful countries were geared toward providing continual and timely monitoring of performance indicators and evaluating the effectiveness of implemented actions. 7. Develop a safety plan and integrate it into agency decision making. Plans in the countries studied define the safety problem, performance targets, and organizational responsibilities and evaluate a range of strategy options for reaching targets. The plans are developed with public input. 8. Monitor effectiveness of implemented actions. Transportation officials in the countries visited had good information on the injury reduction achieved by each implemented strategy.

54 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations Box 3-3 Critical Success Factors The 2006 FHWA publication Halving Roadway Fatalities was inspired by FHWA’s 2004 Pacific scanning tour on performance measurement and written by an Australian expert on that country’s safety methods. It identifies the following critical success factors and enabling circumstances in the highway safety program of the Australian state of Victoria (Johnston 2006, 17): 1. A sound and realistic plan: The plan must identify and focus on the major problems, propose interventions known to be effective, set objective targets, and provide for monitoring of progress and public accountability. 2. Political and bureaucratic leadership: Committed political leadership must be supported by leadership from each agency responsible for implementing the plan. 3. Integrated implementation: Integrated, coordinated implementation by the various agencies with responsibilities under the plan is an essential ingredient of the Victorian success story. Beyond these critical factors, the following enabling circumstances in Victoria contributed to the success of the safety program: • A history of success with interventions based on legislation and enforcement helped create a political willingness to act. • Relationships have long existed between the traffic safety research community and policy makers, which facilitated planning and created a climate in which scientific evaluations of interventions are routine. • Extensive public education traffic safety programs have been instrumental in sustaining community concern for road safety and support for effective interventions. • The media historically have been supportive of effective interventions, which has facilitated political willingness to act.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 55 Box 3-4 Achieving Ambitious Road Safety Targets The OECD Working Group on Achieving Ambitious Road Safety Targets compiled reports in uniform format from 39 member states on traffic safety performance and trends, road safety problems, and the content of safety program (OECD and International Transport Forum n.d.). This information supported a comparative analysis of common institutional features of successful safety programs, summarized in the report as follows (OECD and International Transport Forum 2008d, 16–17): Improving Key Institutional Management Functions Because road safety performance is determined by institutional capacity to implement efficient and effective interventions, targets will be most readily met if a robust management system can be established. This system should have a clear focus on producing agreed results. Results are dependent on interventions which are in turn dependent on institutional management functions. . . . Much of the day to day discussion concerning road safety centres only on interventions. Addressing all parts of the management pyramid [results, interventions, and institutional management functions] brings in such important and often neglected issues as institutional ownership and functional capacities for road safety policies, a safety performance framework for delivery of interventions and accountability for results. The following seven institutional management functions are critical determinants of a country’s capacity to achieve results: • Results focus—a strategic focus that links the delivery of interventions with subsequent intermediate and final outcomes. This requires government to designate a lead agency to work with other agencies to: — Develop management capacity to understand a country’s road safety issues. — Provide a comprehensive strategy with intermediate and outcome targets. — Deliver interventions and target achievements. — Review performance. • Coordination of the key agencies to develop and deliver road safety policy and strategy. • Effective legislation to enable desired results to be delivered. • Adequate funding and well targeted resource allocation for interventions and related institutional management functions. • Promotion of road safety within government and the broader community. • Robust and systematic monitoring and evaluation to measure progress. • Proactive research and development and knowledge transfer programmes which actively influence improvement in interventions, institutional management functions and performance monitoring. Above all, the commitment to a results focused approach to road safety management has a critical role in determining the achievement of a country’s road safety ambition and related targets.

56 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations The generalization that emerges from the past analyses is that successful programs must function effectively at three levels: • Management and planning: Transportation, public safety, and public health administrators systematically measure progress toward quantitative objectives, direct resources to the most cost-effective uses, coordinate programs across agencies, and communicate with the public and with elected officials to maintain their support. Management commitment (in terms of attention and resources) is sustained and consistent. • Technical implementation of specific countermeasures: A range of measures is employed for regulating driver behavior (for example, enforcement techniques to control speed and drunk driving), maintaining effective emergency response, and incorporating hazard reduction in the design and maintenance of roads. The techniques are generally of proven high effectiveness and often intensively applied. • Political support and leadership: Elected officials and their appointees establish safety as a priority, provide the necessary legal framework and resources, and hold public-sector managers accountable for results. A degree of public acceptance of the need for rigorous countermeasures has been gained, and system users expect to be held accountable for compliance with laws and regulations. EXAMPLES OF NATIONAL SAFETY PROGRAMS Authorities in several countries have summarized their road safety programs by means of timelines showing policy actions and coincident changes in fatalities (Figure 3-1). However, as Figure 2-2 in Chapter 2 shows, declines in fatality rates have been nearly universal; therefore, the assertion that the policy milestones marked on the graphs caused the fatality declines would be more convincing if the links between specific policy changes and specific results could be shown directly. For example, did introduction of more rigorous speed enforcement efforts lead to a measured reduction in speeds, and did lower speed lead to a reduction in the kinds of crashes associated with speeding? The first two subsections below describe two cases, new safety policies in France since 2002 and in Australia since 1990, where these links are relatively well documented: changes in high-level policy in a national or regional comprehensive safety program led to changes in strategies, resources, and countermeasures applied, and ultimately to changes in injury frequency. As the summaries of evaluations below will indicate, even in highly regarded safety programs, quantitative evaluation of effects of policies is not as systematic or conclusive as would be ideal; also, the committee obtained little information on program expenditures in the benchmark countries. Nonetheless, study of cases where these links are clearest will provide the most useful insights on the changes needed in U.S. practices to produce safety improvement. The final two subsections describe safety programs in Sweden and the United Kingdom. Road fatality rates in those two countries are among the lowest in the world over the past several decades, and both conduct significant national safety strategic planning and monitoring activities.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 57 3.6 750 Road deaths 3.3 700 First National Road Safety Plan First S(A)P: targeted enforcement resources Deaths per 10,000 vehicles 3.0 650 CBT and speed cameras 2.7 600 Deaths Highway Patrol Intensive advertising and enforcement 2.4 550 Vehicle impoundment 2.1 500 Deaths per 10,000 vehicles 1.8 450 1.5 400 400 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 [fatalities] FIGURE 3-1 Safety policy timelines: New Zealand (top) and France (bottom). [SOURCES: Fitzgerald 2002 (New Zealand); ONISR 2009c (France).]

58 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations France From 1970 to 2008, vehicle kilometers of travel on roads in France increased 200 percent (from 182 billion to 550 billion annually) and highway fatalities declined by 74 percent (from 16,400 to 4,300) (OECD n.d.; OECD and International Transport Forum 2010); consequently, fatalities per vehicle kilometer declined by 91 percent. The rate of 0.78 fatalities per 100 million vehicle kilometers of motor vehicle travel in 2008 was equal to the rate in the United States but remained higher than that in several high-income countries. France has achieved among the steepest declines in fatality rate in the past decade of the OECD countries for which data are available, reducing fatalities per vehicle kilometer by 6.9 percent per year in the 1997–2008 period, compared with 2.4 percent per year in the United States (see Figure 1-1 in Chapter 1). Total fatalities fell by 49 percent from 1997 to 2008, including a 21 percent reduction from 2002 to 2003. Program Evolution and Planning During the 1990s, laws and enforcement efforts against unsafe driver behavior were strengthened. In 1992 a point system was introduced that imposed license suspensions for accumulated infractions. The legal limit for a driver’s blood alcohol content (BAC) was lowered to 0.7 grams per liter in 1994 and to 0.5 in 1995. Starting in 1994, license points were assessed for failure to wear seat belts. Speeding penalties were increased and speed enforcement intensified in the late 1990s. Highway safety had become an increasingly visible political issue during this period (Documentation Française 2006; OECD and ECMT 2006a, 6). The earlier efforts were substantially reinforced after the president of France announced in 2002 that road safety would be one of the priority initiatives of his new term of office. Political sponsorship at the highest level allowed prompt action on a plan for reducing crashes by intensified enforcement that government agencies had been developing for a period of years (Documentation Française 2006; OECD and ECMT 2006a, 3). Political commitment has been sustained. The Interministerial Committee on Road Safety that directs the program has twice- yearly meetings chaired by the prime minister. It sets government policy on highway safety with the participation of the two national police agencies, the transportation agency, the justice ministry, the health ministry, and the safety statistical agency. The centerpiece of the initiative is an automated speed limit enforcement system. One thousand radar and camera apparatuses were in operation by 2005, 1,850 by 2007, and 2,300 by April 2009. Two thousand additions were planned between 2008 and 2012 (Documentation Française 2006; CISR 2006, 6; OECD and International Transport Forum 2008a; Carnis 2008; ONISR 2009a). Sites that had high frequencies of speed-related crashes and that met other criteria were identified as locations for automated speed enforcement. Most sites are on undivided roads with two-way traffic (ONISR 2005, 4). Both fixed and movable cameras are deployed. A national speed enforcement center monitors the enforcement devices via a dedicated telecommunication network, issues citations, and collects fines. The other principal measures in the current French initiative are increased penalties for drunk driving and for failure to use seat belts or motorcycle helmets, introduction of a probationary 6-month license for new drivers, and a road safety infrastructure improvement program. The selection of emphasis areas was guided by analyses that showed that speed and alcohol were contributing factors in large shares of fatal crashes (Raynal 2003; ONISR 2005, 6).

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 59 France’s annual traffic safety review highlights interventions aimed at driver behavior. However, the report acknowledges (ONISR 2008, 22) that among the most effective available interventions are improvements to infrastructure, citing in particular treatment of roadside obstacles and separation (e.g., by barriers) of opposing lanes on high-volume two-lane roads. It does not describe the extent of such improvements in France. A safety-motivated infrastructure program that is documented is roundabout installation at road junctions. The number of roundabouts in France increased from 10,000 in 1993 to 30,000 in 2008, and roundabouts continue to be installed at an average rate of 1,000 per year (Scrase 2008; Guichet 2005). French evaluations indicate that installing a roundabout at an intersection reduces the rate of injury crashes by at least 50 percent, and studies in the United States and other countries have reported similar benefits (Fuller 2008). A benefit–cost evaluation of the French roundabout program has not been conducted (Scrase 2008, 3), but these intersection improvements and programs to reduce roadside hazards and install lane separation probably have contributed to the reduction in France’s fatality rate. Performance Monitoring The chronology of actions alone does not reveal what role the recent safety initiative has played in producing the downward trend in road fatalities. The general trend has been established for decades and the principal measures of the initiative were not in full force until 2004, whereas the sharpest 1-year reduction in fatalities was from 2002 to 2003. However, data are available that allow a more detailed examination of program impacts. France has strong capabilities for evaluating the effects of safety countermeasures by means of its centralized, nationwide program of monitoring of highway crashes, speeds, and enforcement activities. Data are rapidly collected, analyzed, and published; for example, monthly reports on traffic injuries and fatalities and three-times-yearly reports on speed trends by road class and vehicle type are published shortly after the end of the reporting periods (ONISR 2009b). Enforcement data document the substantial increase in effort after the start of the 2002 initiative. Speeding citations, which had increased 31 percent from 2000 to 2003, nearly doubled from 2003 to 2004, the result of the automated enforcement system. The total of license point penalties assessed increased 44 percent in 2004 compared with 2003, and license suspensions for accumulated points penalties increased 87 percent. These increases were largely the result of speed enforcement; the number of alcohol tests administered increased only 5 percent in 2004 (OECD and ECMT 2006a; ONISR 2005; ONISR 2008). Speed data appear to show the results of stepped-up enforcement. The percentage of light vehicles in free-flowing traffic exceeding the speed limit by more than 10 km/h from 2000 to 2008 was as follows (ONISR 2006b; ONISR 2009a; ONISR 2010): Year Percentage More Than 10 Year Percentage More Than 10 km/h over Limit km/h over Limit 2000 36 2005 19 2001 36 2006 15 2002 34 2007 14 2003 27 2008 (8 months) 12 2004 21 2009 10

60 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations Measurements for monitoring speed trends are taken independently of measurements for enforcement and at locations not in proximity to cameras. The overall level of enforcement effort, growth in enforcement effort over the past decade, and progress in the degree of compliance with traffic laws have been substantial. For example, moving violations cited increased by 166 percent, license suspensions by 137 percent, and alcohol tests by 31 percent from 1998 to 2007. Vehicle kilometers of road travel increased by 11 percent over the period. The alcohol test rate was 279 tests per thousand drivers in 2007 (Table 3-1). The increasing rate of positive alcohol tests in spite of increased testing frequency is attributed to better targeting of testing with respect to location and time (ONISR 2008, 166). Seat belt and motorcycle helmet use rates are among the highest in the world. Belt use by front seat occupants is 98 percent overall, 99 percent on autoroutes, and 97 percent in urban areas. Helmet use is 89 to 99 percent depending on the road class (ONISR 2008, 135, 161, 202). These relatively high rates presumably reflect enforcement effort. The intensity of enforcement is evidently considerably higher in France than in the United States, although comparison is difficult because U.S. jurisdictions generally do not monitor enforcement systematically or comprehensively. France’s capability for collection, analysis, and publication of nationwide data on intermediate outputs and measures of enforcement effort is integral to its safety program and is in marked contrast with U.S. practices. Intermediate output measures of enforcement efforts are measures of behavior change caused by the enforcement (e.g., changes in speed and in belt use in response to enforcement). An intermediate output measure for a road infrastructure improvement program would be quantities of kinds of safety-enhancing features installed (e.g., numbers of roundabouts replacing intersections). TABLE 3-1 Enforcement Level of Effort in France, 1998 and 2007 Number Percent Number per (thousands) Change, 1,000 Drivers, 1998–2007 2007 1998 2007 Total moving violations cited 4,884 12,972 +166 322 Speed limit violations 1,084 8,098 +647 201 Failure to wear seat belt 635 407 –36 10 Driver’s license suspensions for impaired driving, speeding, or points 110 261 +137 6 Alcohol tests 8,178 11,230 +29 279 Preventive test (i.e., not 6,836 8,941 +31 222 subsequent to crash or violation) Positive tests 167 376 +125 9 Fatalities 8.49 4.62 –49 Licensed drivers 40,322 NOTE: Citations include those issued by the two national police forces, which have jurisdiction on all roads and streets and account for most enforcement activity. Citations by municipal police are not included. SOURCE: ONISR 2008, 14, 165–168, 172.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 61 As an illustrative comparison, the state of Pennsylvania reports that in 2008, at all sobriety checkpoints and roving patrols targeting impaired driving conducted by state and local police, there were 227,000 “motorist contacts” (i.e., drivers stopped and observed by police), a rate of 26 motorists contacted per 1,000 licensed drivers (PennDOT n.d., 16; FHWA 2009b, Table DL-1C). Most motorists contacted would not have been administered alcohol tests. The French rate (Table 3-1) of 222 drivers per 1,000 subjected to preventive alcohol tests (i.e., tests not subsequent to a crash or citation) is 10 times the Pennsylvania rate of motorist contacts. In New York State in 2007, 64 speeding tickets per 1,000 licensed drivers were issued by state and local police (New York State Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee 2008, 22). Perhaps surprisingly, in view of the extent of its automated speed control system, the French rate was only three times higher, 201 tickets per 1,000 drivers. The rate of ticketing for failure to wear seat belts in 2007 was higher in New York than in France (41 per 1,000 drivers in New York versus 10 in France), probably reflecting the high rate of belt use in France (98 percent for front seat occupants compared with 83 percent in New York in 2007). Evaluations The safety statistical agency has estimated that 40 percent of the reduction of fatalities in 2003 (Chapelon 2004) and 75 percent of the total reduction in casualties from 2002 through 2005 (CISR 2006, 6; ONISR 2006a) can be attributed to speed reductions over the period. The speed and enforcement data suggest that the speed reduction was the result of the enforcement effort. Reduced drunk driving, increased use of seat belts, a slowing of the rate of traffic growth, and unidentified factors also are reported to have contributed to the fatality decline (Chapelon 2004). The estimates of the effect of the speed control program were not based on analysis of the correlation between changes in speed and changes in fatalities on French roads in the period of introduction of the program. Rather, they were derived from a speed-versus-fatalities relationship extracted from a review of the accident research literature, which was then applied to the observed change in speed on French roads in the period (ONISR 2006a, 44). Summary Observations At least four circumstances seem to have been key to France’s recent successful effort to reduce traffic fatalities. First, the program has received sustained high-level political direction. Second, centralization of administration, together with the parliamentary system of government, allows the government to act quickly and on a nationwide scale to implement policies and coordinate activities among agencies and to plan and carry out a consistent long-term strategy. Third, the government’s ability to take effective action has been facilitated by strong capabilities for data collection, evaluation, research, and planning. The speed and efficiency of data collection are an example of the advantages of centralization. Finally, public attitudes and public communication probably have been major factors in the outcome of the program. With 2,300 cameras on 950,000 km of roads, the French automatic speed enforcement network is not very dense, yet the overall enforcement effort has produced a worthwhile change in driver behavior. Substantial publicity has accompanied the speed camera program and is believed to have amplified its effect. To recruit support, the government has undertaken an outreach program aimed at businesses affected by work-related traffic casualties, awards grants to numerous private safety advocacy organizations, and provides technical

62 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations assistance to local authorities (ONISR 2008, 27). Polling is reported to show strong public support of automated enforcement (OECD and ECMT 2006a, 9). The points system penalties are believed to be an effective deterrent because large numbers of drivers who have received speeding citations now face the threat of license suspension if cited again. Australia Australia has achieved fatality rate reductions typical of the high-income countries and greater than those attained in the United States in the past decade. The fatality rate per kilometer of travel, more than 50 percent higher than the U.S. rate in the 1970s, has been lower than the U.S. rate since 2001 (see Figure 2-2 in Chapter 2). Traffic fatalities fell from 1,767 in 1997 to 1,441 in 2008, an 18 percent decline, while traffic grew by 33 percent in the period (OECD n.d.; OECD and International Transport Forum 2010). Primary responsibility for the road system and for road safety falls on the states and territories in Australia. The recent state safety plans harmonize with a national road safety strategy developed jointly by the states and territories and the national government in 2001 through the Australian Transport Council. The council’s 2009–2010 Action Plan highlights a safe system framework, which requires that safety programs direct actions at the four objectives of safer speeds, safer roads and roadsides, safer vehicles, and safer road users (Australian Transport Council 2008). Victoria Safety Program Evolution and Planning The state of Victoria in southeastern Australia, whose capital is Melbourne, achieved a greater percentage reduction in traffic fatalities than the nation as whole in the period 1988–2004 (Johnston 2006, 7). The state’s safety program has influenced the views of U.S. transportation administrators on the possibilities for major reductions in traffic fatalities. The panel that conducted FHWA’s 2004 Pacific scanning tour on transportation performance measures made the following observation (MacDonald et al. 2004, 45): [P]erhaps the most impressive application of a performance-based planning and decisionmaking process of any site visited . . . [is] Victoria’s road safety program. The program has existed for many years, providing the opportunity to identify through absolute numbers and trends what impact it has had in achieving safety goals. FHWA published its short report, Halving Roadway Fatalities, with a description of the Victoria experience and lessons for the United States (Johnston 2006), to publicize the case to a nonspecialist audience. The genesis of the current approach to highway safety, according to the FHWA report, was in the “public outcry” that followed a sharp rise in highway fatalities in the late 1980s. State government ministers were compelled to become directly involved in addressing the problem. More or less continual high-level political support, driven by public demand for improvement and by “the personal beliefs of the ministers,” is reported to have been an essential element of the program from that time (Johnston 2006, 8–9). The state’s first formal traffic safety strategy was developed in 1990. Its three elements were an inventory of the safety interventions available as well as measures that would require

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 63 legislation to implement; a quantitative target for reduction in fatalities; and identification of needs for interagency coordination among the highway agency, the police, the justice department, and the state-monopoly highway injury insurance agency. As in all the Australian states, a single state police agency is responsible for all enforcement. From 1990 to 1992, a series of laws and regulations strengthened enforcement. Random alcohol testing for drivers was greatly increased (the test rate today is 300 per 1,000 licensed drivers annually). The penalty of immediate license suspension for a second drunk driving offense was established. The use of cameras for speed enforcement was introduced, and drivers were penalized points toward license suspension for speed camera violations. For new drivers, the probationary period for new licenses was increased to 3 years and a blood alcohol limit of zero was set for the first 3 years of a new license. Finally, a permanent program of public education was established to inform the public about safety measures and to build public support for safety (Johnston 2006, 9–10). A similar series of events occurred in the late 1990s. After declining in the early 1990s, the annual fatality trend had again leveled off, and a new government declared that reducing fatalities was a priority. In 2000–2004, new regulations lowered the urban speed limit, increased penalties for speeding, and required interlock devices on vehicles of repeat drunk drivers. The state greatly increased the density of the speed camera system and began random driver testing for drug use. Subsequently, fatalities resumed a downward trend. Although the new measures and public information campaigns emphasize driver behavior controls, the safety program also involves safety-enhancing infrastructure improvements (Johnston 2006, 10–11). The state’s 2002–2007 strategic plan committed to a 20 percent reduction in annual deaths and serious injuries over the term of the plan and promised specific initiatives in 17 program areas, including speeding, drunk driving, road infrastructure, vehicle occupant protection, postcrash trauma treatment, older and younger drivers, community involvement, and crash information systems (State Government of Victoria 2001). Implementing, enforcing, and providing public information about the new 50-km/h speed limit in urban areas were major components of the strategy. The fatality reduction target was exceeded (State Government of Victoria 2008, 4). The current plan calls for reducing annual fatalities by 6 percent during the period 2008–2017. The major initiatives are to be a requirement for all new vehicles registered in the state to be equipped with electronic stability control and head-protecting devices (e.g., side curtain air bags), new media campaigns, a new graduated licensing system, a substantial infrastructure investment program aimed at reducing crash risks, and stepped-up enforcement aimed at drug-impaired driving and other priority targets. The state describes its comprehensive strategy, involving improvements in the safety of roads, vehicles, and users, as the safe system approach (State Government of Victoria 2008). Program plans and progress reports on the various initiatives are published periodically during the life of each strategic plan. Funding has been provided in part by the Transport Accident Commission, the state’s injury insurance enterprise. Performance Monitoring The 2004 U.S. scanning tour panel was impressed especially by the Victoria safety program’s use of performance measures, that is, quantitative targets established for enforcement actions and outputs and for reductions in crashes and fatalities. The panel’s report gives examples of the use of performance measures:

64 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations • Commitment to a quantitative goal (e.g., the 20 percent improvement goal in the 2002–2007 strategic plan) as part of a strategic plan that defines the initiatives that will be used to reach it; • Regular benchmarking of the state’s safety experience by comparison with other Australian states and other countries; • The applications of the highway agency’s Road Crash Information System, which provides timely information on high crash frequency locations by type of crash, regular updates on crash frequencies and other performance measures, and information on the progress of projects in the safety program; and • Regular evaluation of the impacts of each element of the safety program. For example, systematically collected speed data in Melbourne allow the state police to track in detail the effectiveness of speed cameras and other enforcement measures in implementing the new reduced urban speed limits. In the state of South Australia, the transport department publishes periodic summary reports on performance indicators for level of enforcement effort and outcomes relating to speed, alcohol- and drug- impaired driving, and seat belts. For example, the 2007 report’s monitoring measures on impaired driving enforcement include the following (Wundersitz et al. 2009): • Number of alcohol tests administered, 678,000; • Alcohol tests per 1,000 licensed drivers, 632; and • Illegal BAC detected (percent of tests), 0.9. The state’s safety program emphasizes driver behavior controls, including measures against impaired driving and control of speed through lowering speed limits and strengthening enforcement in cities with the use of speed cameras. It also espouses the safe system approach, using engineering measures to make roads more forgiving (State Government of South Australia 2008). Some performance indicators relevant to this program are not included in the periodic reports; for example, roadside seat belt use surveys are not regularly conducted, and historical data on vehicle speeds do not exist. In 2007, the state began a systematic program of speed measurement to observe the effects of its speed reduction countermeasures (Wundersitz et al. 2009, 60). The South Australia performance indicators report is noteworthy not only for the high level of enforcement intensity it documents but also as an illustration of the kind of routine performance monitoring that is considered necessary in support of the management of Australian safety programs. Evaluations Victoria’s safety program and its record of fatality reduction are a compelling success story. However, to understand the basis of the safety improvement record and to learn from it, the evidence on how the enforcement program changed speeding, drunk driving, and other high-risk behaviors and on how changes in behavior affected the frequency of casualties in crashes linked to these behaviors must be examined. The effects of the safety initiatives in Victoria and of similar measures in the state of Queensland have been estimated in a series of statistical analyses conducted at the Monash University Accident Research Centre.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 65 For the earlier phase of the Victoria program, an evaluation study supported by the state and by the automobile club estimated the contributions of safety interventions and external factors to changes in the frequency of serious casualty crashes between 1983 and 1996 by means of regression analysis based on monthly data (Newstead et al. 1998). Most of the decline was between 1988 and 1992, the period during which the new safety programs were introduced. The factors considered and the estimated percentage point contributions to the overall 43 percent reduction in serious casualty crash frequency between 1988 and 1996 are as follows: • Speed camera operation (measured by the number of speeding tickets issued), 11; • Television advertising targeting speeding (based on a measure derived from television ratings), 6; • Drunk driving enforcement (the combined effect of numbers of roadside breath tests conducted and the volume of media publicity with a theme of drunk driving), 10; • Alcohol sales (which declined substantially over the period), 10; • Unemployment rate (which increased over the period), 10; and • Highway black spot (i.e., high hazard location) treatments (cumulative number of locations treated since 1988), 6. The percentage point impacts of the individual factors do not add to the total 43 percent because the cumulative effects are multiplicative. The analysis credited all road safety programs together with a 29 percent reduction and external factors (changes in alcohol sales and unemployment) with a 19 percent reduction. The effect of high hazard location treatments was estimated by judgment rather than in the regression analysis. The estimated 16 percent decline in fatalities in Victoria attributable to the multiyear speed enforcement and publicity program is comparable with the estimate for the French speed program, cited in the previous section, of a 20 percent reduction after 3 years. This analysis illustrates the importance of monitoring of enforcement effort as well as of crashes in evaluating and managing the safety program. A second study evaluated the effect of new speed enforcement initiatives in Victoria in 2001 to 2003, during the period in which the speed limit on local streets was lowered from 60 to 50 km/h (D’Elia et al. 2007). In the same period, the hours of operation of speed cameras were increased, the speed detection threshold on the cameras was lowered, and advertising was increased. The method was generally similar to that of the 1998 study: a set of regression analyses related monthly crashes on each of several road categories to a set of external socioeconomic factors and the presence or absence of the countermeasure package. The study concluded that the package reduced the total of casualty crashes during the period by 3.8 percent. The effect was concentrated in metropolitan Melbourne and in speed zones with 60-, 50-, and 40-km/h speed limits. Estimates of effects in shorter time periods indicated that the reduction in casualty crashes was increasing throughout the 2001–2003 period. With regard to the impact of the most recent efforts, the Victoria government asserts that the strategy laid out in the 2002–2007 safety plan “has played a vital part in substantially reducing the state’s road toll and has prevented some 580 deaths” (State Government of Victoria 2008, 4). This estimate appears to be derived by extrapolating the pre-2002 death rate rather than by the quantitative techniques of the earlier evaluations. The effect of the similar package of safety measures in the Australian state of Queensland also has been evaluated (Newstead et al. 2004). The intervention package was to include increased hours of operation of speed cameras; an increase in publicity (although the data

66 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations show that advertising weighted by audience ratings actually was lower in the treatment period than previously); and an increase in on-road police enforcement against drunk driving, speeding, and failure to wear seat belts. By using a statistical analysis technique similar to those of the Victoria studies, the Queensland study estimated that the package had reduced the number of fatal and severe injury crashes in the state by 13 percent during the initial application period of December 2002 through January 2004. The analysis estimated the individual effects of the components of the intervention package and found that the largest effect was attributable to increased use of speed cameras. The doubling of total hours of speed camera enforcement as part of the intervention package was associated with a 9 percent decrease in fatal and serious injury crashes. These statistical analyses would have provided greater insight if impacts of the countermeasures on driving speeds and on driver BAC, as well as on casualty crashes, had been estimated. Ideally, such analyses would be done routinely and frequently, rather than at multiyear intervals, as part of the management oversight of the programs. A more detailed examination of how each state’s philosophy of following evidence-based strategies has worked in practice (for example, how evidence is used to adjust safety programs in progress) also would be valuable. The evaluations of program effectiveness appear to have been conducted at irregular intervals, and it is not clear how their results have affected the evolution of the safety programs. Sweden Sweden’s rate of traffic fatalities per vehicle kilometer has been among the lowest of the OECD countries for as long as data have been available and has been lower than the U.S. rate since the late 1970s. The 2008 rate was 0.51 fatalities per 100 million vehicle kilometers, compared with 0.78 in the United States and 0.70 for the 15 non-U.S. OECD countries shown in Figure 2-2b. Sweden also has reduced its rate faster than the United States in the past decade (Figure 1-1). A small country (population of 9 million) with low population density outside the urban centers, Sweden is in some respects more comparable geographically with Canada and Australia than with the large European countries. Vision Zero has been the philosophy guiding road safety programs since it was established by act of the parliament in 1997. The policy sets zero road fatalities and injuries as the appropriate goal of transportation programs and places responsibility on road authorities and vehicle regulators for providing a transportation system that is forgiving of the errors of drivers. The same act of parliament set a goal of a 50 percent reduction in annual traffic deaths by 2007 (Breen et al. 2007, 4–5). The actual reduction was 7 percent (from 541 to 471), while road travel increased 17 percent (from 67 billion to 78 billion vehicle kilometers) (OECD n.d.). In practice, Sweden has adopted enforcement strategies common in the benchmark nations. Priorities are control of alcohol-impaired driving and of speed. An automated speed enforcement system has been installed nationwide, and speed limits are being selectively reduced. Seven hundred speed cameras in operation in 2006 were estimated to prevent 16 deaths annually (Breen et al. 2007, 26). Expansion of the system is under study, and a plan for selective speed limit reductions is being developed (OECD and International Transport Forum 2008b, 3). High-frequency alcohol testing is carried out. The rate was 380 tests per 1,000 licensed drivers in 2006 (Breen et al. 2007, 53), higher than in France. The legal BAC limit is 0.2 grams per liter (0.02 percent), the lowest in Europe.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 67 The Vision Zero philosophy has led to emphasis on road design. Safety is a primary design criterion. Roads are to be built or reconstructed with features that ensure low casualty risk, and safety considerations play a major role in determining the selection of infrastructure investment projects. Safe design of the highway system has entailed various traffic calming measures and rules to minimize conflicts between motorized and nonmotorized traffic. For example, roundabouts are replacing simple intersections with traffic lights, pedestrians and cyclists are separated from motor vehicles by barriers, opposing lanes are divided by barriers, and alignments incorporate features to force driver attentiveness (e.g., gentle curves in place of long straightaways). A total of 1,500 km of roads of the 2+1 lane design (a three-lane road on which opposing directions have access to the center lane in alternation) has been built since 1998 (Johansson 2007). In general, designs are meant to discourage risky behavior and inattention and to mitigate the consequences of driver errors. Present road and safety plans provide a substantial budget for safety-related capital improvements to roads, including intersection and shoulder modifications and median barriers (OECD and International Transport Forum 2008b, 4). Budget increases have also allowed installation of the speed camera system and an increase in safety research (Breen et al. 2007, 20). The Vision Zero strategy also encompasses vehicle design. Motor vehicle manufacturing is an important industry in Sweden. New vehicle safety standards are largely determined uniformly within the European Union. More than half of new cars sold in Sweden meet the highest level of the European occupant protection rating scheme (Breen et al. 2007, 27–28). Planning emphasizes setting and measuring progress toward targets for intermediate outputs. The targets include kilometers of road with median barriers installed, average traffic speeds, proportion of drivers involved in fatal crashes who are alcohol-impaired, proportion of vehicle occupants wearing seat belts, proportion of motorcyclists wearing helmets, and proportion of total travel that is in vehicles meeting the European four-star crashworthiness rating (OECD and International Transport Forum 2008b, 13). Planning includes projections of the reductions in deaths that are expected from meeting each of the intermediate targets. In this way the plan presents a credible pathway to attaining the overall casualty reduction goal by means of a program of interventions. Sweden has a well-developed system for monitoring these intermediate output measures (Breen et al. 2007, 55–56). Provisions for external review reinforce accountability of the program managers. A government entity, the Traffic Inspectorate, has been created as an independent review agency responsible for examining and issuing reports on the road authority’s safety program (Breen et al. 2007, 22). The government in 2007 invited an independent panel of international experts to review its road safety program and recommend improvements (Breen et al. 2007). The expert panel followed a program review protocol developed by the World Bank. The panel report, while acknowledging Sweden’s leadership in safety program management and results, points out gaps and inadequacies in planning and management and recommends improvements. In summary, the Swedish traffic safety program shows similarities to that of France: it is centralized, enforcement is at a high level of intensity, and capabilities are strong for targeting and monitoring of intermediate outputs. Sweden has not achieved the rapid rate of decline in the fatality rate that France has experienced, but the absolute rate has been much lower than in France throughout the past 30 years. As in France, increased resources for enforcement together with automation have coincided with a continued decline in the fatality rate.

68 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations United Kingdom The historical crash experience of the United Kingdom is similar to that of Australia, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries: the fatality rate per vehicle kilometer was higher than in the United States in the 1970s and earlier and close to the U.S. rate in the 1980s; since the late 1980s the rate has been lower than in the United States, and it is still declining more rapidly than the U.S. rate (Figure 2-2). The 2008 rate was 0.52 deaths per 100 million vehicle kilometers. Traffic deaths in 2008 were 2,600, a 29 percent decline from 1997 (OECD and International Transport Forum 2010). Laws and enforcement practices are largely uniform nationwide, although Scotland has autonomy in certain matters and local government authorities have management responsibilities. The police force is national, but with decentralized administration. The national government manages a £27 million/year traffic safety publicity program, organized around the THINK! campaign (DfT 2008a, 178). Programs to achieve quantitative safety goals are proposed as part of safety planning in the United Kingdom. The first official target, announced in 1987, called for a one-third reduction in road accident casualties by 2000 (DfT 2008b, 176). In fact, casualties of all severities rose by 3 percent in the period, but fatalities fell by 33 percent, while traffic grew by 33 percent (DfT 2008b, 102). The current target, first declared in 2000, is a 40 percent reduction in deaths and serious injuries in road accidents by 2010 compared with the average for 1994– 1998. The trend through 2007 suggests that this target will be met, although the percentage reduction in deaths probably will be considerably smaller (DfT 2008b, 5). A 2000 research study by the U.K. Transport Research Laboratory demonstrated, by using U.K. data, how a plan could be developed on the basis of quantitative estimates of gains expected from specific planned interventions (Broughton et al. 2000). The 2000 study estimated historical relationships between particular safety initiatives and changes in crash frequency in the United Kingdom and applied the relationships in a hypothetical plan to project the safety impact of future safety measures that the authors judged to be feasible and consistent with government policy. In practice, planning targets do not appear to be tied explicitly to projected gains from interventions (DfT 2007; Broughton and Buckle 2008). Nonetheless, progress toward the plan is regularly reviewed, and commitments have been made to increase enforcement and take additional measures to maintain progress toward the goals (DfT 2007, 3–5; DfT 2008b, 5). A major new safety initiative planned is a fundamental reform in driver training and licensing practices, supported by results of new research on the relationship of training to the crash record of young drivers (OECD and International Transport Forum 2008c, 11; DfT 2007, 33–35). As in all the benchmark countries, speed control is a major enforcement priority. Penalty points for speeding have been increased recently, and the use of speed zones is being expanded (OECD and International Transport Forum 2008c, 3–4). Speed enforcement cameras have been in use since 1992 (DfT 2008b, 176). In 2006, 1.96 million speeding citations were issued (Fiti et al. 2008, 6), a rate of 58 citations per 1,000 licensed drivers (DfT 2009b, 12) (Table 3-2), about the same as the rate of speeding citations in New York State and about one-fourth the rate in France. Nearly 90 percent of speeding offenses cited are identified by cameras (Fiti et al. 2008, 15).

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 69 TABLE 3-2 Enforcement Level of Effort in Great Britain, 1999 and 2006 Number Percent Number per (thousands) Change, 1,000 Drivers, 1999–2006 2006 1999 2006 Total motoring offences dealt with 3,722 4,355 +17 129 by police, excluding parking offenses Speed limit violations 995 1,960 +97 58 Failure to wear seat belt 232 7 Driving license disqualifications for specific offenses or points 190 192 +1 6 Alcohol screening breath tests 765 602 –21 18 (England and Wales only) Positive tests 94 106 +12 3 Fatalities 3.42 3.17 –7 Licensed drivers 31,400 33,700 +7 SOURCES: Fiti et al. 2008, 8, 22, 36, 38; DfT 2009b, 12; DfT 2008b, 102. A nationwide speed survey is conducted periodically, and annual reports are published on speeds and congestion. (No such report exists in the United States at the federal level, and only a few states have similar data.) The 2009 report showed that from 1998 to 2008, the percentage of cars exceeding the speed limit (by any margin) declined consistently on roads posted at 30 mph and on divided highways other than motorways but changed little on other roads (DfT 2009a, 40). On motorways, 18 percent of vehicles exceeded the speed limit by more than 10 mph (16 km/h); on undivided roads with a 60-mph posted limit, 2 percent exceeded the limit by more than 10 mph (16 km/h) in 2007 (DfT 2008c, 21). Speed cameras are installed at 5,500 sites (DfT 2008c, 23). Under a management and funding arrangement introduced in 2000, the cameras were paid for from speeding fine revenue through a fund controlled by the national government and overseen by an independent board. The assent and cooperation of local government authorities were required to install and operate speed cameras (PA Consulting Group and UCL 2005, 2–18). This arrangement funded expansion of the system. Since 2007, speed camera funding has been integrated with the general national safety program, and local authorities are responsible for camera deployment and operation (Fiti et al. 2008, 15). A 2005 study evaluated the effect of the U.K. safety camera program in the period 2000– 2004 (PA Consulting Group and UCL 2005). Safety cameras include speed cameras and red light cameras, but 93 percent of offenses identified by the cameras are for speeding (Fiti et al. 2008, 15). The method of the U.K. study differs from that of the evaluations of the French and Australian speed control programs described in the previous sections, which estimated impacts over an entire national or regional road system. In contrast, the U.K. study estimated impacts confined to camera sites. A site is defined as a stretch of road in proximity to a camera installation, which varies in length depending on the type of camera installation (50 meters for a red light camera, 400 to 1,500 meters for a fixed speed camera, and 3 to 10 km for a two-camera site that measures vehicle travel time between two cameras). All camera installation sites were

70 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations chosen according to defined criteria with regard to casualty risk. The total of deaths and serious injuries at all camera sites is on the order of 1 percent of the nationwide total (PA Consulting Group and UCL 2005, 39; DfT 2007, 9). The 2005 study estimated that the frequency of serious injuries and deaths was reduced by 42 percent at the camera sites, over and above the nationwide trend of a 3.5 percent per year reduction in frequency of deaths and serious injuries. That is, the analysis assumed that the camera installations were not influencing the national trend. Total fatalities were reduced by an estimated 100 per year and serious injuries by 1,745 per year. Average speed at sites dropped 6 percent after introduction of cameras, and incidence of speeding fell by 91 percent at sites with permanent cameras (PA Consulting Group and UCL 2005, 5–6). The study estimates the total cost to the government of installing and operating the camera enforcement system (not allowing for fine receipts) as £175 million over 2000–2004 (PA Consulting Group and UCL 2005, 81). This estimated change in casualty frequency does not allow for the effect of regression to the mean. Sites selected because they have unusually high crash frequencies in a period are likely to have more nearly average crash frequency in a subsequent period. The study estimated that at urban sites, regression to the mean accounted for about three-fourths of the reduction in fatalities and serious injuries, after allowing for the nationwide trend (PA Consulting Group and UCL 2005, 154–155). The legal per se BAC limit is 0.08 percent, the same as in the United States and Canada and higher than in any other high-income country. A BAC limit was first enacted in 1967, 11 years before all U.S. states had such a limit. As in the United States, random alcohol testing is not allowed. By law, police can test any driver involved in an accident and can administer a roadside breath test to any driver who has committed a moving traffic offense or who is reasonably suspected to have used alcohol (DfT 2008b, 37). The frequency of roadside screening breath tests (tests following a moving traffic offense or accident or conducted because of suspicion of alcohol use) for England and Wales in 2007 was 21 per 1,000 licensed drivers, 1/10th the rate in France and 1/30th the rate in South Australia. The government periodically conducts scientifically designed roadside surveys to measure the prevalence of alcohol impairment among all drivers (DfT 2008c, 33, 43, 54, 57). Limited surveying has been conducted to measure the prevalence of drug-impaired driving (Jackson and Hilditch 2010, 24– 28). Seat belt use is high, as is the case throughout Europe. According to the 2007 survey, 94 percent of car drivers, 95 percent of front seat passengers, and 69 percent of adult rear seat passengers wear belts. The front seat use rate has been constant since belt use was made mandatory in 1983 (DfT n.d.). Safer infrastructure is one of the 10 themes of the government’s current national road safety strategy. According to the summary of infrastructure programs in the most recent progress report on the strategy (DfT 2007, 43–47), the emphasis of infrastructure safety is on reducing hazards at spot locations and in corridors on existing facilities. The progress report does not describe a philosophy of rethinking basic road design principles from the point of view of safety, as the Swedish Vision Zero documents propose. Local authorities are responsible for maintenance and safety improvements on local roads. Local spending and safety results are regularly monitored by the national government. According to the safety strategy progress report, an analysis of local spending for specifically safety-motivated improvements in infrastructure concluded that these investments are earning a 300 percent rate of return. Such

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 71 specifically safety-related projects on local roads (£135 million in 2005) amount to only a small percentage of total road infrastructure spending. A demonstration project undertaken in 1997–2003 illustrates the philosophical approach to traffic safety that has been adopted by U.K. planners and administrators, which parallels practices described above in other countries, particularly Australia and Sweden. It is also a useful example of the conduct of a large-scale demonstration. The Gloucester Safer City project (DfT 2001; Mackie and Wells 2003) was a 5-year urban traffic safety demonstration partially funded with a £5 million competitively awarded grant from the national government. The objective was to demonstrate how safety could be improved within the area of an entire small city (population 100,000) by a comprehensive urban traffic safety management program, guided by a strategic plan and by ongoing monitoring and supported by adequate resources. The project began with analysis of road safety problems in the city: the distributions of types, locations, and causes of crashes; in addition, traffic volumes and speeds were mapped. A project plan stating the safety improvement objective—to reduce casualties by at least one-third by 2002 compared with the baseline period of 1991 to 1995—and the methods to be used was produced. The organizing principle of the intervention strategy was to establish and enforce a road hierarchy; that is, to force through traffic off local streets and onto main roads by means of traffic calming and other traffic management measures. Traffic calming measures included introduction of features such as speed bumps and road narrowing that induce drivers to slow down. Speed enforcement by means of cameras and police patrols was increased. The rate of issue of speeding tickets quadrupled during the project compared with the previous rate. Other measures included reductions in speed limit on selected roads, antiskid treatments at intersections, modification of the timing of traffic signals to reduce pedestrians’ waits before crossing, and installation of additional crossings and other improvements for pedestrians and bicyclists. Interventions were designed and implemented on an areawide basis. The traffic interventions were reinforced by educational activities, publicity, and arrangements for regular consultation with community interest groups and citizens. The project incorporated an independent evaluation by the Transport Research Laboratory. The budget for evaluation was £1 million, 20 percent of the national government’s contribution. The method of the evaluation was to compare changes in crash casualty frequencies in Gloucester with changes over the same period in a group of similar cities chosen as controls. The project was estimated to have reduced the frequency of casualty crashes by 24 percent and the frequency of crashes resulting in death or severe injury by 37 percent, compared with the frequencies expected in the absence of the program. The evaluation also documented the planning, administrative, and public communications processes used in the project and lessons from these experiences. Nongovernmental organizations have been prominent in the development of U.K. safety policies. Motorist organizations were instrumental in establishing the Road Assessment Program and the New Car Assessment Program in the United Kingdom and in other countries since the 1990s. These programs rate vehicles and roadway segments for safety and publicize the ratings (Castle et al. 2007, 1). The Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS) is a private nonprofit organization that promotes safety for all modes of transportation. The council was founded in 1982 as an outgrowth of the campaign for the compulsory use of seat belts in the front of vehicles. Its broad membership includes 100 members of Parliament as well as public

72 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations agencies, companies, and advocacy groups. Its intended audience is members of Parliament and other public officials. PACTS advocates adoption of research-based solutions and serves as an independent source of technical information and advice for members of Parliament (PACTS 2008). U.K. rates of citation for all moving violations and for speeding and the rate of driver alcohol testing are far below those in France, and the alcohol testing rate is much lower than in Sweden and Australia. Citations for speeding offenses increased 97 percent from 1999 to 2006, but citations for all other offenses declined, and the rate of alcohol testing declined (Table 3-2). Because U.K. roads have been relatively safe by world standards for many years, it is perhaps understandable that interventions on the scale of those in France (where the fatality rate per vehicle kilometer has been twice the British rate throughout the past 30 years) would not be undertaken; however, historical fatality rates in Australia and Sweden are much more similar to the U.K. rate. According to the 2005 evaluation summarized above, the camera enforcement system has not had dominant impact on the overall casualty rate. Despite the apparent disparities in enforcement practices and outcomes, the U.K. fatality rate (per vehicle kilometer) has maintained its ranking as among the lowest in the world, and the U.K. rate has continued its decline, falling 28 percent from 1997 to 2007. Summary Observations on National Safety Programs The summary of past international reviews of safety programs in the first section of this chapter observed that the successful programs must function effectively at three levels: management and planning, technical implementation of countermeasures, and maintenance of political and public support. The benchmark country safety programs described above appear to share some practices in each of these three areas, although some differences are evident as well. Their practices in each area have contrasts with those in the United States, as the next section of this chapter will illustrate. Generalization from brief examination of four national programs must be tentative; however, the following observations are also supported by the past international reviews. With regard to management, among the most evident common characteristics of the national programs is their capacity for systematic measurement of level of effort (e.g., alcohol tests administered, violations cited, judicial outcomes, and safety capital expenditures) and intermediate outputs (including speed distributions, seat belt use rates, roadway conditions, and, less consistently, impaired driving prevalence). The prompt and regular compilation, analysis, and publication of this information are indicative of the overall management philosophy in the programs. Management appears publicly committed to producing measurable results and possesses a realistic and technically sophisticated grasp of the relationship of results to level of effort. Monitoring is incomplete in some areas even in the most advanced programs. For example, prevalence of impaired driving among all drivers on the road does not appear to be measured as routinely as is prevalence of speeding. Evaluations that use statistical or experimental techniques to measure the effects of interventions are conducted, but they are occasional, and the planning documents reviewed do not describe how results of evaluations are used in setting and adjusting program goals or in allocating resources. Only rarely are evaluations undertaken that estimate the contribution of each of the elements of a national (or state) safety program to the overall safety trend over a

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 73 period of years. [Analyses of this kind include the 1998 Victoria study (Newstead et al. 1998) summarized above and a study undertaken for Norway (Elvik 2005).] As a result of gaps in evaluation, even the most advanced benchmark countries lack a comprehensive, quantitative understanding of the major factors that have been driving trends in their traffic casualties. Therefore, it is difficult for outside observers to identify which elements have been critical to success. The evaluations of national speed control programs cited above illustrate this uncertainty. Evaluations in France and Australia appear to show that systemwide automated enforcement (together with publicity and other program measures) has produced a systemwide reduction in speed and a consequent reduction in casualties that is a major contributor to the favorable national traffic safety trend. Evaluations of automated speed enforcement in the United Kingdom and Sweden [and in Norway (Elvik 2005, 22)] do not report large systemwide speed effects and hence attribute only a small share of the national casualty reduction to speed control. Ongoing evaluation of the impacts of actual interventions will be needed to resolve such uncertainties. With regard to countermeasures, the striking characteristic of the four countries’ programs is the intensity of enforcement. Systematic U.S. data are not available for comparison, but citations for speeding and roadside tests for alcohol impairment may be 3 to 10 times more frequent in some of the benchmark countries than in the United States. Enforcement intensity in the United Kingdom appears to be intermediate between intensity in Australia, France, and Sweden and that in the United States. The United Kingdom nonetheless has a very low fatality rate, and the speed with which the fatality rate has been reduced is comparable with that of Sweden and Australia. Publicity campaigns in the four countries appear to be intense, sustained, integrated with the overall traffic safety strategy, and based on a foundation of research, and they are reputed to have reinforced the impact of enforcement and other safety measures. The committee did not conduct a detailed comparison of the structure or content of publicity campaigns of the United States with those of the benchmark countries; such a comparison would be worthwhile. Finally, with regard to political and public support, certain institutional features that appear to be typical of safety programs in the benchmark nations probably have contributed to their effectiveness. The features include centralization of most aspects of the programs; the parliamentary structure of government (which, in at least some cases, allows the ministries preparing plans to make firm multiyear commitments to strategies and resources); and a history of effective communication among program administrators, researchers, and elected officials. Nongovernmental organizations have influenced safety program development in the United Kingdom, but their importance in other countries is less evident. Because of the sparse documentation available to the committee, the roles that public demands and leadership from elected officials played in the development of the benchmark countries’ safety programs are unclear in most cases. In Victoria, Australia, a series of public outcries reportedly led to political pressure for action. However, in France, safety initiatives had been developing for a period of years at a lower level when the president decided to make safety a high-visibility political issue, and the speed enforcement system, the centerpiece of the French initiative, was guided by a plan that had been prepared earlier in the ministry. In other countries and in U.S. states, leadership by the executive agency in presenting credible proposals for safety initiatives and in educating elected officials was essential in stimulating action. Government traffic safety programs have sought to earn public and political support over time through transparency with regard to goals and methods and through demonstrated results.

74 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations NATIONALLY ORGANIZED SAFETY MANAGEMENT REFORM INITIATIVES IN THE UNITED STATES Box 3-5 outlines the components of a comprehensive U.S. state and local government traffic safety program, as defined in AASHTO’s model strategic safety plan (AASHTO 2005). The objectives of the comprehensive program are safe drivers, safe roads, safe vehicles, and efficient emergency medical services. This structure parallels the comprehensive safety programs of other countries described above, for example, Australia’s safe system framework. As Chapter 1 observed, the decentralized structure of U.S. government is the source of significant organizational differences between U.S. safety programs and those of most of the benchmark nations. Box 3-6 outlines the division of responsibilities among levels of government for regulation and administration of traffic safety. Aside from motor vehicle safety regulation (which is a direct federal responsibility), U.S. federal government involvement in traffic safety is indirect. It influences state and local governments’ road and safety programs most strongly through the rules it imposes on recipients of federal highway and traffic safety grants. The federal government also provides information, training, and research in support of state and local government traffic safety activities. State governments build and operate the major intercity roads and highways (and more extensive portions of the road system in some states); maintain state police that enforce traffic regulations; operate the criminal and civil courts; and have the authority to enact laws concerning driver licensing, vehicle inspection, speed limits, impaired driving, seat belt and motorcycle helmet use, and other aspects of traffic safety. Local governments operate local streets and roads, enact local traffic regulations (e.g., with regard to speed zones), and provide local police who enforce traffic laws within their jurisdictions and local courts with authority over minor offenses. Examples of U.S. activities organized at the national level and aimed at strengthening the capabilities of state and local agencies in planning, management, and evaluation of traffic safety programs are described in this section. The activities are the following: • Two USDOT demonstration programs, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Strategic Evaluation States Initiative (SESI), a 2002–2005 demonstration of intensive enforcement against alcohol-impaired driving; and the Demonstration Projects on Setting and Enforcing Rational Speed Limits, jointly sponsored by FHWA and NHTSA in seven states in 2001–2006; • State safety plans, as influenced by the federal requirement for each state to prepare a Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) and by AASHTO guidelines on safety planning; • The Uniform Guidelines for State Highway Safety Programs concerning speed management and impaired driving (these are two of the 18 guidelines that NHTSA has prepared, as required by federal law, to aid the states in conducting programs funded by federal safety grants); and • New quantitative analysis aids for safety planning.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 75 Box 3-5 Elements of a Comprehensive Traffic Safety Program AASHTO’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan (AASHTO 2005) is an outline of a model plan for state government programs to reduce traffic deaths and injuries. The plan is organized in terms of 19 goals grouped into five plan elements. Most of the goals correspond to categories of interventions. The outline provides a definition of the scope of state and local government traffic safety activities. AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan Elements and Goals 1. Drivers (regulation of driver licensing and motorist behavior, publicity to change attitudes and behavior) — Instituting graduated licensing for young drivers — Ensuring that drivers are fully licensed and competent — Sustaining proficiency in older drivers — Curbing aggressive driving — Reducing impaired driving — Keeping drivers alert — Increasing driver safety awareness 2. Special users (measures to reduce risks to pedestrians and bicyclists) — Making walking and street crossing safer — Ensuring safer bicycle travel 3. Vehicles (state regulations concerning safe maintenance of vehicles and use of safety equipment such as helmets; the federal government regulates the safety of vehicle designs) — Improving motorcycle safety and increasing motorcycle awareness — Making truck travel safer — Increasing safety enhancements in vehicles 4. Highways (roadway design and maintenance and traffic control to reduce the risk of injury and death) — Reducing vehicle–train crashes — Keeping vehicles on the roadway — Minimizing the consequences of leaving the road — Improving the design and operation of highway intersections — Reducing head-on and across-median crashes — Designing safer work zones 5. Emergency medical services — Enhancing emergency medical capabilities to increase survivability 6. Management (management systems required to support the interventions) — Improving information and decision support systems — Creating more effective processes and safety management systems (continued)

76 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations Box 3-5 (continued) The AASHTO plan elements do not cover actions in the legislative or judicial branches. NHTSA’s Uniform Guidelines (NHTSA n.d. a) include three guidelines—on codes and laws, judicial and court services, and prosecutor training—concerning the legal framework and ensuring that courts are competent to adjudicate traffic safety cases. Box 3-6 Federal, State, and Local Government Executive Agency Functions Related to Traffic Safety Organization Major safety-related responsibilities Federal agencies Federal Highway Administration Design standards for new and rehabilitated state (U.S. Department of Transportation) highways built with federal aid; safety capital improvement grants to states National Highway Traffic Safety Administration New vehicle safety standards; federal traffic safety (U.S. Department of Transportation) grants to states for speed control, anti–impaired driving, seat belt promotion, and other programs Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Direct federal regulation of commercial truck and bus (U.S. Department of Transportation) safety; oversight of state regulation and enforcement National Transportation Safety Board Independent advisory agency that investigates major transportation accidents State government agencies (some may be organized as subunits of a state department of transportation) State highway agency Construction and maintenance of state highways (including major intercity roads, as well as many minor roads in some states) Public safety agency, including state police Enforcement of traffic and safety laws on state roads, emergency response Vehicle registration and driver licensing agency Motor vehicle registration, vehicle inspection, driver licensing State highway safety office Management or coordination of programs concerning driver behavior (occupant protection, impaired driving, and speeding); administration of NHTSA safety grants Local government agencies Public works department Construction and maintenance of local streets and roads Police department Enforcement on local streets and roads Emergency medical response service Ambulance service at crashes

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 77 Box 3-6 (continued) Note: Associations of state officials or of state agencies, which are private nonprofit organizations, perform important functions including defining best practices and program guidelines; supporting training, professional development, and research; and representing collective views of members to the federal government. They include AASHTO, the Governors Highway Safety Association (state highway safety offices), the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (truck safety enforcement officials), the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The legislative and judicial branches, not shown in the table, perform the essential functions of enacting safety laws and of trying accused offenders and overseeing penalties for offenders, respectively. The list of involved agencies and the summaries of responsibilities are not comprehensive. The purpose of examining these activities is to allow comparisons of U.S. practices with those of other countries. An understanding of how practices differ is necessary in drawing lessons from safety practices elsewhere. This section focuses on management practices and on federal government efforts to support state programs; the case studies in Chapter 4 compare applications of specific countermeasures in the United States and other countries. USDOT-Sponsored Safety Strategy Demonstrations Two recent USDOT-sponsored multistate projects were intended to demonstrate comprehensive strategies aimed at controlling the high-risk driver behaviors, speeding and drunk driving, that have high priority in the benchmark nations’ initiatives. The experience of these projects indicates problems that USDOT has faced in attempting to provide leadership on safety. Strategic Evaluation States Initiative In 2002, NHTSA undertook a project, SESI, to demonstrate how states could organize statewide anti–drunk driving programs incorporating certain components that NHTSA believed were critical to success. NHTSA recruited 15 states to participate, which together account for more than half of U.S. alcohol-related traffic fatalities. The states agreed to organize programs under NHTSA guidance and to submit reports on their activities. The requirements were as follows (Syner et al. 2008): • The participating states agreed to conduct high-visibility, multiagency enforcement operations, on a sustained, year-round schedule, covering substate jurisdictions that account for at least 65 percent of all alcohol-related fatalities. The states agreed to participate in the National Impaired Driving Enforcement Crackdown, a preexisting NHTSA annual program that organizes a nationwide 2-week period of stepped-up enforcement, and to sustain a relatively high level of enforcement by staging crackdowns at least monthly for at least a year. Saturation patrols and, in some states, sobriety checkpoints were used in enforcement. • The lead state agencies agreed to secure commitments from local law enforcement agencies that they would participate in enforcement and to provide guidance to the local agencies on enforcement methods.

78 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations • States agreed to cooperate with NHTSA in media campaigns to publicize the anti– drunk driving initiatives. NHTSA produced advertisements and paid for advertising synchronized with crackdowns. NHTSA summarized the results of SESI in a report on three states, which, NHTSA cautions, “does not represent a formal, scientific evaluation” (Syner et al. 2008, 6). The three (West Virginia, Georgia, and Alaska) were chosen from among the 15 participants because their programs were judged to be strong. The report describes the procedural aspect of SESI, that is, the organization of the programs in the states, but does not evaluate the impact on safety. The summaries of the states’ programs and NHTSA’s conclusions illuminate the problems that the states’ safety improvement efforts confront and suggest directions for strengthening federal efforts to promote best practices. The following observations are among the lessons that the report’s description of the initiative suggests: • A functioning statewide anti–drunk driving program, even on a modest scale, requires a major coordination effort. NHTSA highlights, as a principal accomplishment, the improved communication and coordination among state and local law enforcement agencies and among state agencies with public safety responsibilities brought about by participation in SESI. It was necessary for each state lead agency to recruit local police force participation; incentives (e.g., reimbursement for police overtime shifts) were offered in at least some cases. Georgia reported commitments from 587 law enforcement agencies in the state to participate in the annual crackdowns. Success also required that each local police agency coordinate enforcement crackdowns with local courts and prosecutors to gain their support and to allow them to prepare for the increased workload. • Officers in some local forces were found to lack basic training in anti–drunk driving enforcement techniques. The NHTSA report concluded that providing local police training is an essential element in organizing statewide programs. • Applying a standard program model uniformly in all states is not possible. The states differ greatly in population density, roadway extent, and traffic volumes; in their laws; and in state and local government organizational structure. For example, some states used sobriety checkpoints during enforcement crackdowns, while others, presumably because state law does not sanction this method, did not. • Resource constraints significantly limit the level of effort that states are able to devote to stepped-up enforcement. Consequently, the increase in effort during the demonstration appears overall to have been small. For example, 30 person-hours of enforcement per week were added in Anchorage, a city of 270,000. (However, West Virginia reported substantially increasing statewide enforcement over the program period.) The NHTSA summary contains little information on level of effort or expenditures, but only modest funding appears to have been available in the states to pay for increased policing or for state-level coordination, training, and publicity. Even if the interventions used were potentially effective, the increase in the level of effort during the demonstration might have been insufficient to produce measurable safety effects. NHTSA has sponsored a retrospective evaluation of an earlier anti–drunk driving demonstration program, conducted in 2000–2003 with seven participating states (Fell et al. 2008). The research solicited information from each state on numbers of enforcement activities

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 79 conducted (sobriety checkpoints and saturation patrols) and media budgets. Arrests for driving while intoxicated were obtained from Federal Bureau of Investigation crime statistics. Impact measures were derived from NHTSA’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System database. The statistical analysis concluded that the program reduced fatalities in four of the seven states. This kind of evaluation is valuable; however, incorporating evaluation into the design of demonstration projects would produce more detailed and definitive insight into the relation of the methods and the level of effort to outcomes. Setting and Enforcing Rational Speed Limits In a second project, NHTSA and FHWA recruited participants in seven states to demonstrate and evaluate an integrated approach to speed management. In test sites in each state, posted speed limits were revised (apparently more often raised than lowered) on the basis of engineering studies of each site that considered prevailing speed, pedestrian activity, crash history, and other factors. Then a program of strict enforcement was instituted, supported by local publicity campaigns. The judiciary were informed of the program. Each demonstration included data collection and evaluation. The participants and demonstration sites were as follows (FHWA n.d. a; FHWA 2005): Participant Site Mississippi Department of Transportation Major arterial highway in Gulfport Massachusetts Governors Highway Safety Bureau Residential collectors in Natick Connecticut State Police Secondary roads in Hebron Tippecanoe County, Indiana, Highway Department Two-lane county roads City of Taylor, Michigan, Police Department City streets and freeway connector South Central Planning and Development Urban and rural roads in two parishes Commission, Louisiana Virginia Department of Transportation Freeway bypass in Martinsville Organization of the program began in 2001, and the demonstrations were conducted at most sites from 2003 through 2005. Each demonstration was of small scale; the USDOT contribution was $150,000 to $400,000 at each site. The demonstrations typically involved several miles of streets or roads in a local area and 4 to 18 months of special enforcement. Most involved a single local jurisdiction. No summary report of the program has appeared. Evaluations were published by NHTSA for the Mississippi demonstration (Freedman et al. 2007) and by the evaluation researchers for the Virginia (Son et al. 2007), Indiana (Tarko 2008), and Massachusetts (Knodler et al. 2008) demonstrations. A brief summary of the Connecticut results was published by the state legislative research office (Fazzalaro 2006). Each site had a different evaluator, and the evaluations varied in method and sophistication. All the evaluations estimated the impact of the demonstrations on speeds. Some examined crash data, but the scale of the demonstrations was such that a safety impact would not have been measurable unless it had been very large. The evaluations reported small but apparently significant speed impacts. At some sites the combined effect of raising the speed limit and increasing enforcement was to increase average speed. The scale and the evaluation

80 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations methods used did not allow separation of the effects of publicity, enforcement, and changes in posted limits. The evaluation reports do not detail funding or resources devoted to the demonstrations, so judging cost-effectiveness is not possible. The conclusion of the Indiana evaluation (Tarko 2008, 1) was that “the joint impact of aggressive safe-speed campaign with police enforcement at selected sites on speed selection was minimal. Drivers drove at speeds they considered adequate for local conditions and the attempt to change their behavior through enforcement and campaigning was not easy.” This result seems consistent with the demonstrations’ modest scale with respect to road mileage, period of application, and intensity of enforcement and publicity. It would not be reasonable to extrapolate the results of a demonstration applied to short road segments over a period of months to predict the impact of applying the same speed management methods consistently over major portions of the road network in a region or state for a period of years. Observations Concerning National Demonstrations The results of the SESI and rational speed limits demonstration programs support the following observations about USDOT safety demonstrations and how they might be made more valuable: • In concept, the SESI program was a potentially valuable and appropriately designed demonstration. NHTSA recruited a large group of states to participate, defined a strategy that each state was to follow, provided some material support, and required participants to report results. The design of the rational speed limits demonstration program is more problematic, since it is unclear whether the scale of the activity was sufficient to serve as either a test or a demonstration of speed management methods. The goals of the speed demonstration program probably were overly ambitious for the resources available. • Evaluation of program impacts was minimal in SESI. For the three case study states, survey results on public awareness of the programs and statewide annual alcohol-related fatalities are the only measures reported. No data were reported that would allow outcomes to be related to level of enforcement effort. As noted, NHTSA intended its report on SESI to serve as an implementation guide rather than an evaluation, but information on effort and expenditures required to attain a desired outcome would be necessary in planning implementation of an enforcement program. NHTSA has not published an evaluation or a summary of the results in all 15 participating states. Some of the rational speed limits demonstration participants devoted greater care to evaluation, although USDOT has not disseminated the evaluations. • USDOT’s own resource constraints limit its capacity to conduct worthwhile large- scale demonstration of safety strategies. The experience of SESI suggests the following of a more productive demonstration: — USDOT would be able to offer participants more substantial support and in return could require more substantial and consistent state efforts and more rigorous reporting of efforts and outcomes. Challenge grants or more stringent matching requirements might increase federal leverage to stimulate higher levels of state funding commitment to these programs. — Quantitative evaluation would be conducted either directly by USDOT or by each state following specific and detailed USDOT standards. A demonstration is intended to publicize and teach effective methods and generally cannot be structured strictly as a

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 81 scientific experiment; nonetheless, it must convincingly show that the methods yield worthwhile results. — The evaluation would include estimates of the cost-effectiveness of individual countermeasures. — USDOT would publish full results of the evaluation for all participating states and practical guides derived from the experience of the program. Effective demonstration programs could be a valuable tool for reforming highway safety practice. To meet this promise, demonstrations will require adequate support and rigorous design and execution. Meaningful evaluation of demonstrations requires reliable historical baseline data on traffic characteristics, crash frequency and characteristics, road conditions, frequency of high-risk behaviors, and enforcement level of effort. In many jurisdictions, greater effort to establish this baseline will be a prerequisite to fully successful participation in demonstrations. Strategic Highway Safety Plans Preparation of an SHSP is a federal requirement first imposed by the 2005 federal surface transportation assistance act (Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users Section 1401; 23 USC 148) as a condition of participation by a state in the federal highway safety improvement grant program. The state must prepare and carry out a strategic plan that includes a process for identifying highway safety problems and developing a program of projects or strategies to reduce them, and it must report annually to USDOT on the identified road hazards and the means and costs of mitigating them. The plan must establish an evaluation process to assess the results achieved by highway safety improvement projects. The law requires that the plan include “performance-based goals that . . . address traffic safety, including behavioral and infrastructure problems,” although the law’s specifications for the content of the plan refer mostly to identification and elimination of hazardous locations and elements on roads. The plan is to be prepared by the state department of transportation in consultation with the Governor’s Highway Safety Representative, state and local enforcement officials, and other relevant state government agencies. Each state is also required, as a condition for receipt of federal highway safety grant funds, to submit an annual highway safety plan to NHTSA describing the specific activities to be funded through the federal program and how they relate to the state’s defined safety goals. States also submit annual reports to NHTSA describing the previous year’s activities and progress toward goals (NHTSA n.d. b). These planning and reporting requirements have existed in some form since the federal safety program’s inception in 1966. The need for state strategic safety plans had been recognized earlier by AASHTO. The AASHTO SHSP, first published in 1997 and revised in 2005, sets broad goals for safety improvement, comprehensively identifies actions that each state should take with regard to each of 19 plan elements grouped in five areas (driver regulation, pedestrian and cyclist safety, vehicle safety, highway design, and emergency medical services), calls on each state to develop its own comprehensive safety plan (i.e., a plan addressing all five areas), and calls for increased federal aid for state safety programs (AASHTO 2005). To support its strategic plan, AASHTO sponsored development of detailed technical guidelines for countermeasures by NCHRP (AASHTO n.d.).

82 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations State implementations of the new SHSP requirement were reviewed in case studies of four states prepared in 2007 in NCHRP Project 17-18(016), Creating a Traffic Safety Culture, and in a 2008 examination of six state plans conducted for FHWA (More and Munnich 2008). In addition, a report by an industry group summarized the priorities identified in the plans of 21 states (ATSSA 2007). Content of the SHSPs The purposes of the AASHTO guidance and of the federal SHSP requirement are (a) to encourage the states to take a multiyear perspective in program planning and in setting goals and (b) to coordinate all government activities affecting traffic safety, including vehicle and driver regulations, enforcement, highway design and operation, and emergency medical response. The older federally required annual highway safety plans addressed to NHTSA are narrower in scope; they address only programs funded with federal grants, in particular the NHTSA- administered highway safety grant programs and the hazard elimination program. Before the 2005 federal requirement, some states (e.g., Washington, Oregon, and Wisconsin) had already prepared strategic safety plans in keeping with the AASHTO guidelines. After 2005, all states prepared SHSPs, typically modeled on the AASHTO SHSP, with additions to ensure that all the federally required elements are present. Most of the plans identify a list of, typically, five to six highest-priority program areas (e.g., reducing impaired driving and increasing seat belt use). The areas usually correspond to plan elements in the AASHTO document (ATSSA 2007; More and Munnich 2008, 7). The discussion of each priority program area in the plan often concludes with a list of relevant strategies (i.e., countermeasures), following the format of the AASHTO model plan. In some plans the strategies are concrete and specific, but in others they are stated generally. The strategies sometimes are described as “suggested” or “recommended,” acknowledging that the authors of the plan cannot make a commitment that the strategies will be carried out (More and Munnich 2008, 4; PennDOT 2006, 8–16). The states’ annual highway safety plans addressed to NHTSA may refer to the priority areas identified in the SHSP and report on actions and progress toward SHSP goals. For example, Pennsylvania’s 2009 Highway Safety Plan lists goals for the year related to each of the six focus areas in the state’s strategic plan. For the focus area of reducing impaired driving, the 2009 goal is to make 500,000 motorist contacts through driving-under-the-influence enforcement activities (PennDOT 2008, 16). In summarizing the SHSPs’ contents, the FHWA-sponsored review concluded that “the six plans varied significantly in their overall completeness and depth. . . . Some plans prioritized the issues in each emphasis area. Others took a more general approach, which did little more than satisfy federal reporting requirements. . . . It is important to note however, that this was the first time some states had created a safety plan. As these plans are revised, it is likely they will become more complete and focused” (More and Munnich 2008, 7). In 2009 FHWA released a draft SHSP implementation process model (FHWA 2009a). The document and its supporting material are intended as a guide to the states for developing and acting on their strategic safety plans. The guide is based on a review of the experience of six model states and was produced in collaboration with NHTSA and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. A 6-month, 10-state pilot test of the guide was conducted in 2009, and a revised version was to have been issued in 2010.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 83 Observations Concerning the SHSP Requirement The state offices preparing the SHSPs are severely limited in their ability to make multiyear commitments to sustain a strategy or to provide resources. The plans are prepared by the executive branch agencies responsible for the state’s highways, with input from other state agencies and from local governments. However, a state plan cannot commit local governments to expend resources or to follow state direction in law enforcement and other activities relevant to safety. States can provide incentives for local cooperation, but they have limited resources for this purpose. In addition, safety program budgets are determined year to year by the legislature. The executive agency plan cannot commit the legislature to any level of funding or to any specific highway safety policy. The proponents of strategic planning expected the agencies writing the SHSPs to publish visionary and comprehensive statements of aspirations for highway safety over the next decade. However, the agencies, faced with the political reality of their limited authority, often produce plans that address concretely only the limited range of actions under their control. The position of the U.S. state executive agencies contrasts with circumstances in most of the benchmark nations. Highway administration in most other high-income countries is more centralized than in the United States, and government ministers, at least in some cases, have been able to make multiyear commitments to a policy course and for provision of resources. The SHSPs cannot provide for or ensure accountability because of the weak position of the state agencies preparing them and because of technical limits on state planning capacities. Plans do not present quantitative arguments projecting how much the proposed countermeasures, individually or collectively, will contribute toward attaining the quantitative safety goals. For example, many states list curbing aggressive driving (i.e., the complex of hazardous behaviors that includes speeding, illegal passing, tailgating, weaving, and ignoring signals) or speeding as among their priorities. However, few states have any systematic measures of aggressive driving (e.g., periodic speed surveys), and no state can project, on the basis of research evidence, the expected quantitative impact on aggressive driving or speeding (or on the resulting casualties) of the proposed countermeasures, at the level of effort that will be available. Evidence is not available for determining how the states have changed their safety programs since the introduction of the strategic plans. To determine whether changes have occurred, systematic tracking of measures of level of effort and of intermediate outputs would be necessary. In addition, without such information, plans cannot analyze the level of effort or resources required to carry out the strategies they describe or how these requirements compare with available resources. A 2008 NHTSA report acknowledges that only one intermediate output measure, seat belt usage measured by roadside survey, is generally available for use in federal and state highway safety planning and management and that only limited enforcement level of effort measures (numbers of citations and arrests for certain violations) are available. NHTSA states that it intends to cooperate with the Governors Highway Safety Association in promoting speed monitoring as an additional intermediate output measure as well as in promoting other measures of enforcement effort (Hedlund 2008, i–ii). Shortcomings in state planning parallel the description in the World Bank Guidelines for the Conduct of Road Safety Management Capacity Reviews of safety programs in countries where safety management capacity is limited and a strong lead safety agency is absent. The consequences of this lack, in the World Bank’s observation, are that “coordination arrangements can be ineffective, supporting legislation fragmented, funding insufficient and poorly targeted,

84 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations promotional efforts narrowly and sporadically directed to key road user groups, monitoring and evaluation systems ill-developed, and knowledge transfer limited. Interventions are fragmented and often do not reflect good practice. Little is known about the results they achieve” (Bliss and Breen 2009, 16). The World Bank guidelines include a checklist for evaluating the adequacy of lead agency functions and powers (Bliss and Breen 2009, 38) that states could apply in assessing their own safety organizational structure. The constraints on the authority of the agencies preparing the SHSPs to make long-term commitments with regard to strategy or resources are an unavoidable aspect of U.S. government institutions. Despite these constraints, conditional commitments could be included in the plans. That is, the plans could contain statements from the safety agencies that if they are given certain specified resources, they will produce certain specified safety results. For such commitments to be credible, the states would need much stronger capabilities than they now have for monitoring and evaluating the costs and benefits of safety programs. Uniform Guidelines for State Highway Safety Programs The law that establishes the federal highway safety grant program requires that state highway safety programs, to be eligible for federal grants, be “in accordance with uniform guidelines promulgated by the Secretary [of Transportation]” (23 USC 402a). NHTSA has published 19 current guidelines, each outlining procedures for a particular safety program element. Among them are guidelines on motorcycle safety, driver education, licensing, judicial services, impaired driving, traffic records, emergency medical services, pedestrian and bicycle safety, traffic law enforcement, speed management, occupant protection, vehicle inspection, vehicle registration, legal codes, prosecutor training, debris cleanup, pupil transportation, accident investigation, and roadway safety. The program elements addressed by the guidelines correspond to activities for which the states may receive federal grants administered by NHTSA. The guidelines (originally called “uniform standards”) have been a feature of the federal highway safety grant program since it was founded in the Highway Safety Act of 1966. NHTSA explains the purpose of the guidelines today as follows (NHTSA n.d. a): These guidelines offer direction to States in formulating their highway safety plans for highway safety efforts that are supported with section 402 and other grant funds. The guidelines provide a framework for developing a balanced highway safety program and serve as a tool with which States can assess the effectiveness of their own programs. NHTSA encourages States to use these guidelines and build upon them to optimize the effectiveness of highway safety programs conducted at the State and local levels. The difficulties of developing and applying safety program standards in the federal context are indicated by an examination of the speed management guideline, revised in 2006 (NHTSA 2006). The guideline has seven sections: program management; problem identification; engineering countermeasures; communications program; enforcement countermeasures; legislation, regulation, and policy; and data and evaluation. The program that the guideline specifies reflects present understanding of the critical elements in successful traffic safety programs. It is consistent with internationally recognized best practices as described in the report of the OECD Speed Management Working Group (OECD and ECMT 2006b) and in the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP) speed management manual (GRSP 2008). It

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 85 emphasizes the value of automated enforcement, as do the OECD and GRSP documents. However, whether states or local governments possess the technical or managerial capacity to conduct the program outlined in the guideline is questionable. For most jurisdictions, following the guideline would require a radical change in management practices and a large increase in resources devoted to traffic safety. A state that wished to implement such a program would face significant obstacles. It would have no basis for estimating the budget required or identifying the personnel and other resources needed, no readily available source of technical support, and no basis for communicating to senior executives and the legislature what the impact of implementing such a program would be. For example, the problem identification section of the guideline calls for rigorous and detailed speed monitoring and evaluation of the effect of changes in speed limits (NHTSA 2006, 2): Each State should provide leadership, training, and technical assistance to: • Monitor and report travel speed trends across the entire localized road network; • Identify local road segments where excessive and inappropriate vehicle speeds contribute to speeding-related crashes; • Monitor the effects on vehicle speeds and crash risk of setting appropriate speed limits; and • Coordinate, monitor, and evaluate the short- and long-term effect of State legislative and local changes that establish appropriate speed laws and posted speed limits on mobility and safety. However, as the section on speeding countermeasures in Chapter 4 describes, systematic speed monitoring today is rare among state and local transportation agencies and (as noted in the section above on safety plans) seldom used for safety program planning. States also would encounter difficulties in following the section of the guideline on communication (NHTSA 2006, 3), which stipulates the following: The State should aid established Speed Management Working Groups by providing the leadership, training, and technical assistance necessary to: • Develop and evaluate culturally relevant public awareness campaigns to educate drivers on the importance of obeying speed limits and the potential consequences of speeding; • Use market research to identify and clearly understand how, when, and where to reach high-risk drivers; Most states have conducted media campaigns aimed at speeding or aggressive driving, and NHTSA offers technical advice on these campaigns (NHTSA 2009; NHTSA n.d. c). However, actual evaluations of safety impacts or cost-effectiveness of publicity campaigns are not available for guiding a state or local agency attempting to design such a marketing program (Hedlund et al. 2009, 3-21, 4-11, 4-13). State and local agencies can find more extensive qualitative discussions of procedures in the NCHRP report A Guide for Reducing Speeding-Related Crashes (Neuman et al. 2009), one

86 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations of a series of guides developed to help state and local agencies implement the AASHTO SHSP. However, the NCHRP report offers few examples to demonstrate the feasibility of the methods proposed and no information about effectiveness. The report does not appear to be keyed to the NHTSA guideline; for example, it offers no advice for carrying out the speed monitoring and evaluation activities that NHTSA calls for. Additional guides are published by NHTSA, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and others, but practical documentation of actual implementations that reduced crashes and casualties is lacking. Quantitative Analysis Aids for Safety Planning Safety planning and management require models analogous to those available to transportation administrators for air quality, pavement condition, and congestion evaluation. Needs include systems for screening of road networks, diagnosis of crash causes, and selection of cost- beneficial countermeasures. Formal safety planning and management tools recently developed, in part with federal government sponsorship and with sponsorship of the states through NCHRP, can support some of these capabilities if the states devote the necessary resources to their proper use. Among such tools are the Interactive Highway Safety Design Model, an expert system to evaluate the safety of highways in the planning and design stage, and SafetyAnalyst, an expert system to screen the road network for high-hazard locations and assess costs and benefits of countermeasures (Box 3-7). These analysis aids can strengthen state safety planning by supporting assessment of how the state’s capital program contributes to meeting safety objectives. States can use the aids in safety plans to set quantitative targets for their hazard elimination programs and for the safety performance of planned new construction and to help guide allocation of resources among roadway safety improvements and other safety programs. The planning and analysis resources listed in Box 3-7 apply to highway design and traffic control. No analogous tools exist to aid decisions concerning behavioral interventions. However, since 2005, NHTSA has published and periodically revised Countermeasures That Work (Hedlund et al. 2009), a compendium of information on the effectiveness, current use, costs, and implementation time for most behavioral countermeasures (including measures against impaired driving, speeding, and aggressive and distracted driving; promotion of seat belt use; regulation of younger and older drivers; and motorcycle, pedestrian, and bicycle safety), intended as a guide to safety administrators designing such programs.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 87 Box 3-7 Analysis Tools and Planning Resources for State Safety Programs • AASHTO SHSP Implementation Guides (AASHTO n.d.): Nineteen volumes in the NCHRP Report 500 series identifying proven and unproven strategies, keyed to the AASHTO plan • Integrated Safety Management Process (NCHRP Report 501) (Bahar et al. 2003) — Outlines procedure to optimize highway safety; emphasizes integration of relevant agencies — Measurable targets linked to federal requirements for state safety plans — Component of AASHTO safety planning initiative • Interactive Highway Safety Design Model (FHWA n.d. b) — Expert system to evaluate highways in the planning and design stage — Predicts expected crash rates on tangents and curves according to cross section, median type, radius of curvature, and so forth — Determines whether design violates standards — Future module is for prediction of driver behavior (e.g., speed) — Developed by FHWA — Coordinated with development and organization of SafetyAnalyst and the Highway Safety Manual • SafetyAnalyst (FHWA n.d. c) — Applicable to existing roads — Expert system to 1. Screen road network for locations with higher-than-expected (for facility type) crashes 2. Determine crash patterns (e.g., rear-end) 3. Diagnose the driver errors leading to those crashes and propose related countermeasures 4. Assess costs and benefits of countermeasures given crash frequencies and expected effectiveness — Intended to guide project selection and resource allocation • Highway Safety Manual (AASHTO 2010) — Provides tools for evaluating safety consequences of road design and operational decisions — Includes the first U.S. compendium of accident modification factors [estimates of safety consequences of design choices (e.g., for cross section, radius of curvature, median type, shoulder type)] with a sound statistical basis — Is expected to elevate the importance of safety considerations in the project development process • Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems (Campbell et al. 2008) — Comprehensive set of guidelines in uniform, practical format for design of highway features (e.g., stopping sight distance, decision sight distance) based on driver requirements — Complement to Highway Safety Manual for completing detailed designs

88 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations Summary Observations on U.S. Nationally Organized Safety Initiatives Evidence is lacking that the initiatives at the national level to reform traffic safety program management methods are sufficient to have had an impact on established practices. USDOT- sponsored demonstrations of new methods have been conducted with limited resources, and, at least in some instances, evaluations were inadequate to show that the methods demonstrated yielded results. Dissemination of lessons learned from the demonstrations sometimes appears to have been ineffectual. The primary purpose of demonstrations is not basic research on countermeasure effectiveness; however, if the goal is to induce states to adopt effective methods, convincing evidence of effectiveness will be an essential selling point. The NHTSA Uniform Guidelines, originally envisioned as standards defining acceptable practice, are technically valid but presuppose technical and institutional capacities that state and local governments generally do not possess. The impact of the SHSPs, a major national initiative aimed at changing the methods and procedures of traffic safety programs, is not yet evident. The state government agencies preparing the plans have limited control over most of the resources and policies that form the substance of traffic safety programs. Therefore, the plans do not embody commitments either to effort or to results. Given this political reality, an alternative and potentially more valuable format for the SHSPs, rather than the lists of suggested or recommended actions that many now contain, would be to propose conditional commitments; that is, the agencies administering state safety programs would make commitments to produce specified safety results, provided they are given specified levels of resources. Resources include funding as well as legal authority; for example, funding for enforcement and publicity together with legal authority for sobriety checkpoints as components of a state’s anti–drunk driving program. REFERENCES Abbreviations AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials ATSSA American Traffic Safety Services Association CISR Comité Interministériel de la Sécurité Routière DfT Department for Transport ECMT European Council of Ministers of Transport FHWA Federal Highway Administration GRSP Global Road Safety Partnership NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ONISR Observatoire National Interministériel de Sécurité Routière PACTS Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety PennDOT Pennsylvania Department of Transportation AASHTO. 2005. AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan. Washington, D.C. AASHTO. 2010. Highway Safety Manual: 1st Edition. Washington, D.C. AASHTO. n.d. Implementation Guides. http://safety.transportation.org/guides.aspx. ATSSA. 2007. Strategic Highway Safety Plans: Compilation of State Safety Priorities. March.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 89 Australian Transport Council. 2008. National Road Safety Action Plan 2009 and 2010. Nov. Bahar, G., M. Masliah, C. Mollett, and B. Persaud. 2003. NCHRP Report 501: Integrated Safety Management Process. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C. Baxter, J., M. L. Halladay, and E. Alicandri. 2005. Safety Scans—A Successful Two-Way Street. Public Roads, Vol. 69, No. 1, July–Aug. Bliss, T., and J. Breen. 2009. Implementing the Recommendations of the World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention: Country Guidelines for the Conduct of Road Safety Management Capacity Reviews and the Specification of Lead Agency Reforms, Investment Strategies and Safe System Projects. World Bank Global Road Safety Facility, June. Breen, J., E. Howard, and T. Bliss. 2007. An Independent Review of Road Safety in Sweden. Dec. http://www22.vv.se/filer/52611/independent_review_of_road_safety_in%20_sweden.pdf. Broughton, J., R. E. Allsop, D. A. Lyman, and C. M. McMahon. 2000. The Numerical Context for Setting National Casualty Reduction Targets. Transport Research Laboratory Ltd. Broughton, J., and G. Buckle. 2008. Monitoring Progress Towards the 2010 Casualty Reduction Target: 2006 Data. Report 663. TRL Ltd., Oct. 8. http://www.trl.co.uk/online_store/reports_publications/trl_reports/cat_road_user_safety/report_Monito ring_progress_towards_the_2010_casualty_reduction_target_-_2006_data.htm. Campbell, J. L., C. M. Richard, and J. L. Graham. 2008. NCHRP Report 600A: Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems: Collection A: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 13, 22, 23, 26. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C. Carnis, L. 2008. The French Automated Speed Enforcement Programme: A Deterrent System at Work. Proc., Australasian Road Safety Research Policing Education Conference, Adelaide, South Australia, Nov. 9–12, pp. 752–766. http://www.rsconference.com/pdf/RS080011.pdf. Castle, J., D. Lynam, J. Martin, S. D. Lawson, and N. Klassen. 2007. Star Rating Roads for Safety: UK Trials 2006–07. IAM Motoring Trust, Dec. Chapelon, J. 2004. France: Recent Developments in the Field of Road Safety. Observatoire National Interministériel de Sécurité Routière, Sept. 6. CISR. 2006. Dossier de Presse. July 6. D’Elia, A., S. Newstead, and M. Cameron. 2007. Overall Impact of Speed-Related Initiatives and Factors on Crash Outcomes. 51st Annual Proceedings: Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine: Annals of Advances in Automotive Medicine, Vol. 51, pp. 465–484. DfT. 2001. Report on the Gloucester Safer City Project. DfT. 2007. Second Review of the Government’s Road Safety Strategy. Feb. 26. http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/strategytargetsperformance/2ndreview/. DfT. 2008a. Annual Report 2008. May. DfT. 2008b. Road Casualties Great Britain: 2007: Annual Report. Sept. 25. http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/. DfT. 2008c. Road Safety Compliance Consultation. Nov. DfT. 2009a. Road Statistics 2008: Traffic, Speeds and Congestion. July. DfT. 2009b. Transport Statistics Bulletin: National Travel Survey: 2008. DfT. n.d. Seat Belts. http://www.dft.gov.uk/think/focusareas/invehiclesafety/seatbelts?page=Overview. Documentation Française. 2006. La Sécurité Routière: Une Priorité Nationale. http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/securite-routiere/index.shtml. Elvik, R. 2005. Has Progress in Road Safety Come to a Stop? A Discussion of Some Factors Influencing Long Term Trends in Road Safety. Institute of Transport Economics, Nov. Fazzalaro, J. J. 2006. Connecticut Participation in “Rational Speed Limit Project.” Connecticut Office of Legislative Research, Aug. 4. Fell, J. C., E. A. Langston, J. H. Lacey, A. S. Tippetts, and R. Cotton. 2008. Evaluation of Seven Publicized Enforcement Demonstration Programs to Reduce Impaired Driving: Georgia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Indiana, and Michigan. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Feb.

90 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations FHWA. 2005. Rational Speed Setting and Enforcement Demonstrations. Safety Programs Newsletter, May–June. FHWA. 2009a. The Essential Eight: Fundamental Elements and Effective Steps for SHSP Implementation: Strategic Highway Safety Plan: Implementation Process Model: Draft. May 11. FHWA. 2009b. Highway Statistics 2008. FHWA. 2009c. International Technology Scanning Program. Updated June 26. http://international.fhwa.dot.gov/scan/. FHWA. n.d. a. Demonstration Projects on Setting and Enforcing Rational Speed Limits. http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/eng_spd_lmts/. FHWA. n.d. b. IHSDM Overview. http://www.tfhrc.gov/safety/ihsdm/ihsdm.htm. FHWA. n.d. c. SafetyAnalyst Overview. http://www.safetyanalyst.org/index.htm. Fiti, R., D. Perry, W. Giraud, and M. Ayres. 2008. Statistical Bulletin: Motoring Offences and Breath Test Statistics: England and Wales 2006. United Kingdom Ministry of Justice, April. Fitzgerald, S. 2002. Managing the Police and Road Design Interface. Presented at Trafinz Conference, Dunedin, New Zealand, Sept. 9. Freedman, M., D. De Leonardis, A. Polson, S. Levi, and E. Burkhardt. 2007. Test of the Impact of Setting and Enforcing Rational Speed Limits in Gulfport, Mississippi. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Oct. Fuller, L. 2008. Statistics and World Studies. International Road Assessment Program. http://www.saferoaddesign.com/media/2204/france.pdf. GRSP. 2008. Speed Management: A Road Safety Manual for Decision-Makers and Practitioners. Geneva. http://www.who.int/roadsafety/projects/manuals/speed_manual/speedmanual.pdf. Guichet, B. 2005. Roundabouts in France: Safety and New Issues. Presented at National Roundabout Conference, Vail, Colo., May 24. http://www.teachamerica.com/Roundabouts/RA056A_ppt_Guichet.pdf. Hedlund, J. 2008. Traffic Safety Performance Measures for States and Federal Agencies. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Aug. Hedlund, J. H., B. Harsha, W. A. Leaf, A. H. Goodwin, W. L. Hall, J. C. Raborn, L. J. Thomas, and M. E. Tucker. 2009. Countermeasures That Work: A Highway Safety Countermeasures Guide for State Highway Safety Offices: Fourth Edition 2009. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Jackson, P., and C. Hilditch. 2010. A Review of Evidence Related to Drug Driving in the UK: A Report Submitted to the North Review Team. Department for Transport, June. Johansson, R. 2007. Vision Zero—The Swedish Traffic Safety Policy. Road Safety Scotland Annual Seminar, Oct. 24. www.srsc.org.uk/Images/Roger%20Johansson_tcm4-455561.ppt. Johnston, I. 2006. Halving Roadway Fatalities: A Case Study from Victoria, Australia, 1989–2004. Federal Highway Administration, April. Knodler, M. A., Jr., D. Hurwitz, and H. A. Rothenberg. 2008. Evaluation of Rationally Implemented Speed Limits on Collector Roadways. Presented at 87th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C. MacDonald, D., C. P. Yew, R. Arnold, J. R. Baxter, R. K. Halvorson, H. Kassoff, K. Philmus, T. J. Price, D. R. Rose, and C. M. Walton. 2004. Transportation Performance Measures in Australia, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand. Federal Highway Administration, Dec. Mackie, A., and P. Wells. 2003. Gloucester Safer City: Final Report. TRL Ltd. More, A., and L. Munnich, Jr. 2008. Rural Transportation Safety and the Strategic Highway Safety Plan: An Examination of Select State Programs and Practices. Federal Highway Administration, Feb. http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/5923/1/CTS08_02.pdf. Neuman, T. R., K. L. Slack, K. K. Hardy, V. L. Bond, R. D. Foss, A. H. Goodwin, J. Sohn, D. J. Torbic, D. W. Harwood, I. B. Potts, R. Pfefer, C. Raborn, and N. D. Lerner. 2009. NCHRP Report 500: Guidance for Implementation of the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan: Volume 23: A Guide for Reducing Speeding-Related Crashes. Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, Washington, D.C.

National Safety Programs in Benchmark Countries and the United States 91 Newstead, S., I. Bobovski, S. Hosking, and M. Cameron. 2004. Evaluation of the Queensland Road Safety Initiatives Package. Report 272. Monash University Accident Research Centre, Dec. Newstead, S. V., M. H. Cameron, and S. Narayan. 1998. Further Modelling of Some Major Factors Influencing Road Trauma Trends in Victoria: 1990–96. Monash University, April. New York State Governor’s Traffic Safety Committee. 2008. New York State Highway Safety Strategic Plan: FFY 2009. NHTSA. 2006. Highway Safety Program Guideline No. 19: Speed Management. Nov. NHTSA. 2009. Integrated National Communications Plan. March. http://www.trafficsafetymarketing.gov/commplans.cfm. NHTSA. n.d. a. Highway Safety Program Guidelines. http://204.68.195.250/nhtsa/whatsup/tea21/tea21programs/. NHTSA. n.d. b. State Highway Safety Documents. http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/whatsup/SAFETEAweb/index.htm. NHTSA. n.d. c. Traffic Safety Marketing. http://www.trafficsafetymarketing.gov/index.cfm. OECD. n.d. International Road Traffic Accident Database. http://www.swov.nl/cognos/cgi- bin/ppdscgi.exe?toc=%2FEnglish%2FIRTAD. OECD and ECMT. 2006a. Country Reports on Road Safety Performance: France. Joint Transport Research Centre, July. OECD and ECMT. 2006b. Speed Management. Joint Transport Research Centre. OECD and International Transport Forum. 2008a. Country Reports on Road Safety Performance: France. July. OECD and International Transport Forum. 2008b. Country Reports on Road Safety Performance: Sweden. July. OECD and International Transport Forum. 2008c. Country Reports on Road Safety Performance: United Kingdom (Great Britain). July. OECD and International Transport Forum. 2008d. Towards Zero: Ambitious Road Safety Targets and the Safe System Approach: Summary Document. Joint Transport Research Centre. http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/safety/targets/08TargetsSummary.pdf. OECD and International Transport Forum. 2010. Press Release: A Record Decade for Road Safety: International Transport Forum at the OECD Publishes Road Death Figures for 33 Countries. Sept. 15. OECD and International Transport Forum. n.d. Country Reports on Road Safety Performance. http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/safety/targets/Performance/performance.html. ONISR. 2005. French Road Safety Policy. http://www.securiteroutiere.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/FRSP.pdf. ONISR. 2006a. Impact du Contrôle Sanction Automatisé sur la Sécurité Routière (2003–2005). ONISR. 2006b. Observatoire des Vitesses: Second Quadrimestre 2006. Oct. 20. http://www.securiteroutiere.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/observatoire_vitesse.pdf. ONISR. 2008. La Sécurité Routière en France: Bilan de l’Année 2007. ONISR. 2009a. Observatoire des Vitesses: Premier Quadrimestre 2009. July. ONISR. 2009b. Observatoire National: Statistiques des Accidents. http://www2.securiteroutiere.gouv.fr/infos-ref/observatoire/index.html. ONISR. 2009c. La Sécurité Routière en France: Bilan de l’Année 2008. ONISR. 2010. Bilan de la Sécurité Routière du 1er Semestre 2010 en Données Provisoires: Premiers Chiffres. July. PA Consulting Group and UCL. 2005. The National Safety Camera Programme: Four-Year Evaluation Report. Dec. PACTS. 2008. Annual Review 07/08. Sept. 8. http://www.pacts.org.uk/briefings-and- articles.php?id=69. Peden, M., R. Scurfield, D. Sleet, D. Mohan, A. A. Hyder, E. Jarawan, and C. Mathers (eds.). 2004. World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. World Health Organization. PennDOT. 2006. Comprehensive Strategic Highway Safety Improvement Plan. Oct. PennDOT. 2008. Highway Safety Plan: Federal Fiscal Year 2009.

92 Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations PennDOT. n.d. Highway Safety Annual Report: FY 2008. Raynal, F. 2003. Road Safety: The French Change Direction. Label France, No. 52, 4th quarter. http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/france_159/label-france_2554/presentation_8452.html. Scrase, R. 2008. Circle of Influence: How France Has Used Roundabouts to Cut Casualties. International Road Assessment Program. http://www.saferoaddesign.com/media/2204/france.pdf. Son, H., M. Fontaine, and B. Park. 2007. Field Evaluation of Rational Speed Limits. Presented at 86th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C. State Government of South Australia. 2008. South Australian Road Safety Action Plan 2008–2010. July. State Government of Victoria. 2001. Arrive Alive! Victoria’s Road Safety Strategy, 2002–2007. Nov. http://www.arrivealive.vic.gov.au/index.html. State Government of Victoria. 2008. Victoria’s Road Safety Strategy: Arrive Alive 2008–2017. Syner, J., B. Jackson, L. Dankers, B. Naff, S. Hancock, and J. Siegler. 2008. Strategic Evaluation States Initiative—Case Studies of Alaska, Georgia, and West Virginia. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, April. Tarko, A. P. 2008. Can Enforcement and Education Affect Speed on County Roads? Presented at 87th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, D.C. Wundersitz, L. N., K. Hiranandani, and M. R. J. Baldock. 2009. Annual Performance Indicators of Enforced Driver Behaviours in South Australia, 2007. Centre for Automotive Safety Research, University of Adelaide, Aug.

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TRB has released the prepublication version of Special Report 300: Achieving Traffic Safety Goals in the United States: Lessons from Other Nations. The report explores the reasons why several high-income nations have achieved better highway safety records than the United States and recommends best practices from abroad that would fit in the U.S. context. The report examines traffic safety program management practices, risk reduction techniques, and the sources of public and political support for safety interventions.

According to the committee that produced the report, the United States could see greater improvement in highway safety through the adoption of systematic, results-oriented safety management practices that are flexible enough to take into consideration local and regional legal constraints, community attitudes, resources, and road system and traffic characteristics.

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