Strategic Highway Safety Plan

A statewide commitment to eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries.

The Colorado Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) is the state’s roadmap for creating a safer transportation system for everyone. Developed by the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) in collaboration with other state and local agencies, safety advocates, private partners, and community members, the SHSP outlines a comprehensive and data-driven strategy to reduce and ultimately eliminate traffic-related deaths and serious injuries across the state. Rooted in the Vision Zero philosophy, the SHSP establishes shared goals, performance targets, and proven safety strategies to guide safety investments and policy decisions over a five-year period.

Colorado updates its SHSP every five years to align with changing trends and best practices and to remain eligible for Federal Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funding (a core federal-aid program to reduce fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads, including non-state and tribal roads). 

What’s included in the plan? 

The organization of the SHSP reflects Colorado’s adoption of the Safe System Approach which includes five Emphasis Areas. Within each of these Emphasis Areas, there are Focus Areas that describe particular contexts, behaviors, or populations that are associated with fatal and serious injury crashes. Tied to each Focus Area are specific strategies that set clear performance measures, funding sources, project-level detail, and evaluation criteria. 

To learn more about each Emphasis Area’s Focus Areas and Strategies click on the links below:  

SHSP

Turning Plan to Action

To bring the 2025 Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) from vision to implementation, annual action plans and end-of-year reports are developed throughout the plan’s lifecycle. Each year, the Advancing Transportation Safety (ATS) Emphasis Area Working Groups—supported by CDOT’s ATS team—develop an annual Action Plan to guide implementation and set targets for a set of SHSP strategies. For every SHSP strategy, the relevant working group assigns a readiness score and designates a Champion for those strategies deemed ready for implementation. Champions are responsible for creating strategy-specific action plans, setting achievable annual targets, and providing regular progress updates that are incorporated into the final Action Plan. The Action Plan is then reviewed and approved by the ATS Steering Committee. At the end of the state's fiscal year, the ATS team compiles an Annual Report to evaluate progress and guide the development of the next year’s action plan.

View the 2025 Action Plan

SHSP Documents

Table of Contents

• Executive Summary
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Data Analysis & Findings
• Chapter 3: SHSP Stakeholder Engagement
• Chapter 4: Emphasis Areas Overview & Approach
• Chapter 5: Safety Culture
• Chapter 6: Safe Driving
• Chapter 7: Safe People
• Chapter 8: Safe Roads
• Chapter 9: Post-Crash Care
• Chapter 10: Implementation

Download full plan 

Appendices

• Appendix A: Plan Alignment Exhibit
• Appendix B: Strategies Table
• Appendix C: Data Sources
• Appendix D: Workshop Summaries
• Appendix E: Virtual Engagement

Download full appendices

Download full SHSP plan with appendices