USDOT introduces the National Roadway Safety Strategy

Last week USDOT released its National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS). This new strategy outlines the approach USDOT will use as a “guiding paradigm” for addressing serious collisions on our countries roadway’s in order to prevent deaths and serious injuries for all roadway users . The following explanation and illustration describe how the NRSS will work.

The NRSS has five guiding principles:

1. Human road users will make mistakes. 2. From an injury standpoint Humans are vulnerable. 3. A systems approach with differing redundant layers of protection is required to protect all road users. 4. Deaths and Serious Injuries are unacceptable, and therefore the strategy will focus on prevention of the serious collisions first. 5 The responsibility for safety is shared and includes all stakeholders: government at all levels, industry, researchers, advocates, and the public and all must be involved.

In addition to these five guiding principles. The Safe System Approach will progress towards the goal of eliminating deaths and serious injuries through application of progressive steps in each of its five key action elements:

Safer Roads “Design roadway environments to mitigate human mistakes and account for the injury tolerances, to encourage safer behaviors and to facilitate safe travel by the most vulnerable users.”

Safer Speeds “ Promote safer speeds in all roadway environments through a combination of thoughtful, context-appropriate roadway design, targeted education and outreach campaigns and enforcement.”

Safer People “ Encourage safe, responsible behavior by people who use our roads and create conditions that prioritize their ability to reach their destination unharmed.”

Safer Vehicles “Expand the availability of vehicle systems and features that help to prevent crashes and minimize the impact of crashes on both the occupants and the non-occupants.”

Post-Crash Care “ Enhance the survivability of crashes through expedient access to emergency medical care, while creating a safe working environment for vital first responders and preventing secondary crashes through robust traffic incident management practices.”

This strategy and approach are welcomed and long awaited. We commend USDOT and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg for this important first step in improving safety on our roadways. The time is right for this effort, and it is critically important coming when roadway fatalities, serious crashes and risk taking on our highways has hit an all-time high.