Safety Culture
Transportation Safety Culture is foundational to achieving zero fatalities and serious injuries on Colorado roadways. The U.S. Department of Transportation defines safety culture as “the shared values, actions, and behaviors that demonstrate a commitment to safety over competing goals and demands.” For Colorado, Safety Culture is embracing and championing safety at all levels and the public actively practicing and encouraging safe driving behaviors.
About Safety Culture
Transportation safety culture recognizes that to achieve different outcomes requires changes in behavior. Changing behavior requires shifting beliefs. For instance, a family that establishes rules around seatbelt use in the car, never driving distracted, and following speed limits teaches their kids about acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, ultimately increasing their personal safety and the safety of others by decreasing risky behavior. A culture of safety can take many forms, but most often, in transportation, it manifests as organizational and public – the primary Focus Areas for Safety Culture.
Organizational Safety Culture
Organizations with strong safety cultures proactively elevate the importance of transportation safety by integrating safety into every aspect of programming and projects. To achieve this requires strong support from organization leaders, managers, and supervisors. Organizational leaders must translate safety into policies, practices, and everyday behaviors and hold all staff accountable to these expectations.
Strategies
- SC01: Conduct organizational safety culture assessments
- SC02: Support local agency programs (Local Technical Assistance Program and Safety Circuit Rider)
- SC03: Expand public engagement
- SC04: Consider communities with below average safety outcomes when making transportation safety investment decisions
- SC05: Enhance collaboration and information sharing among traffic safety professionals
Public Safety Culture
Communities with a strong safety culture have a shared understanding that their individual transportation choice not only can negatively impact them but also impact others. Most people in communities with a strong safety culture wear their seatbelts, put away their phones while driving, follow the speed limit, and wear helmets while riding a motorcycle to reduce the risk of severe injury or death to themselves or others while on the roadway. These practices are instilled through expectation setting within families, neighborhoods, and workplaces.
Strategies
- SC06: Pilot community-level safety culture partnerships
- SC07: Educate through media campaigns
- SC08: Build capacity among the public
Additional Tools & Resources
Safety Portal
Find current safety statistics, read related safety plans, explore data dashboards and learn about our funding programs.
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