Three States are Honored for highway safety leadership.
Press Release Summary:
On October 25 of this year, 2009 AASHTO Safety Leadership Awards were presented to states of Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico at AASHTO Annual Meeting in Palm Desert, CA. While each state selected employed differing programs and approaches, all demonstrated strong leadership, support of behavioral approaches to improving highway safety through flexing Highway Safety Improvement Program funds, and success in reducing highway fatalities and serious injuries.
Original Press Release:
AASHTO States Honored for Leadership to Improve Highway Safety
(Washington, DC)-The 2009 AASHTO Safety Leadership Award was presented to the states of Colorado, Nebraska, and New Mexico at the AASHTO Annual Meeting in Palm Desert, California, Sunday, October 25, 2009.
The three states selected for the award have varied programs and approaches, but each of them demonstrate strong leadership, support of behavioral approaches to improving highway safety through flexing Highway Safety Improvement Program funds, and success in reducing highway fatalities and serious injuries. Highlights of the award recipients' programs are:
Colorado has achieved a significant decrease in fatalities in part due to strong and active partnerships among safety stakeholders that address all aspects of highway safety. Colorado uses an innovative project identification and prioritization method to determine how best to spend limited safety dollars that includes a comparative analysis of roadway segments, intersections, and spot locations and a binomial probability analysis method known as Pattern Recognition and Direct Diagnostics.
Nebraska has sustained its trend in lowering fatalities in part through significant investment in safety projects, including high risk rural road safety improvements. Also, nearly all counties have participated in a statewide horizontal curve signing initiative.
Nevada has continued to achieve a decrease in highway fatalities despite increases in vehicle miles traveled. Nevada has developed a Strategic Communications Alliance to coordinate highway safety communications statewide, has effectively implemented systematic low cost treatments for reducing roadway departure crashes, and is making data improvements to better identify high crash locations and to provide better access to data.
This year, AASHTO received a record 12 nominations from states demonstrating effective leadership in reducing highway fatalities. All of the states nominated for the award have continued to reduce the annual number of highway fatalities within their states.
"State departments of transportation continue to work with our federal partners to develop and implement effective programs to save lives," said Kurt Steudle, director of the Michigan Department of Transportation and chairman of AASHTO's Standing Committee on Highway Traffic Safety. "These projects are to be commended for leading the way toward AASHTO's commitment to reducing by half the number of fatalities along our nation's roadways - including pedestrian fatalities - within the next 20 years."
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is the "Voice of Transportation" representing State Departments of Transportation in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. AASHTO is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association serving as a catalyst for excellence in transportation.
