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3 Background A key element of the Toward Zero Deaths (TZD) National Strategy on Highway Safety is the transformation of the traffic safety culture in the United States among all road users, including non-motorized users. This transformation would not only support road user decisions to behave safely, but would also increase their support for strategies that increase traffic safety. However, changing safety culture is a complex challenge because there are many sources of social influence from the different social groups with which we may identify ourselves. For example, the traffic safety culture in the United States is a reflection of social influences from local (e.g., family, workplace, and community) as well as more distant aspects of our social environment (e.g., state and national). A successful strategic approach to transform traffic safety culture must consider all of these levels of social influence. The purpose of this project is to provide state agencies responsible for traffic safety (and their traditional, as well as non-traditional, traffic safety partners) with guidance for a strategic approach to transform the traffic safety culture of road users and stakeholders. The goal is to use this approach to sustain improvements in traffic safety for all road users, including non-motorized users. This guidance is strategic in the sense that it provides high- level recommendations but cannot provide extensive details because of the wide variety of circumstances and conditions that arise when addressing an issue as complex as traffic safety among different jurisdictions (e.g., federal, state, county, city, community, etc.). This report integrates Tasks 1 through 4 in the project work plan as shown in Figure 1. The report also introduces initial efforts from Tasks 5 and 6.
4 Figure 1. Diagram of relationship among project tasks and objectives. This report is presented in four chapters: ï· Chapter One is an introduction to terminology and theory supporting the proposed strategic approach to transform traffic safety culture. ï· Chapter Two gives guidance for successfully implementing each step of this proposed approach, including identifying areas for potential development of knowledge and skills among those implementing the process. ï· Chapter Three addresses the integration of the proposed process into the existing safety planning processes of state transportation agencies. ï· Chapter Four summarizes the main conclusions from the report. The format of this report is intended to parallel the format of the handbook, which will be the final project deliverable. The handbook will be designed to provide guidance for a strategic approach to transform the public traffic safety culture. Although the information presented in this report is written for state agencies responsible for traffic safety, other traditional and non-traditional traffic safety stakeholders can also apply it. Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 Task 6 Task 7 Task 8 ⢠Objective H: Identify research gaps and actions needed to advance traffic safety culture paradigm. ⢠Objective G: Create usable and accessible tools for workforce training and education. ⢠Objective F: Document best practice for strategies to transform traffic safety culture. ⢠Objective E: Provide a process for integrating culture-based strategies into existing traffic safety planning processes. ⢠Objective D: Provide a process for identifying traffic safety stakeholders. ⢠Objective C: Provide a general process for transforming traffic safety culture. ⢠Objective B: Provide scalable guidelines for measuring traffic safety culture. ⢠Objective A: Provide a standard operational definition of âtraffic safety culture.â