California Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP)

What is the Strategic Highway Safety Plan? 

The California Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) is a statewide data-driven traffic safety plan that coordinates the efforts of a wide range of organizations to reduce roadway fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads. In coordination with federal, state, local, and private sector safety stakeholders, the SHSP establishes goals, objectives, and challenge areas.

The 2020–2024 California Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP), "California Safe Roads: 2020-2024 Strategic Highway Safety Plan" has been developed using the data findings and input from regional outreach events to determine effective strategies to reduce roadway fatalities and serious injuries. 

Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety in the SHSP

Two specific Challenge Areas in the SHSP are concerned with active transportation safety:

Challenge Area: Pedestrians

The Pedestrians Challenge Area includes crashes where at least one fatal or serious injury victim is a pedestrian. 

Though pedestrian serious injuries have decreased since 2016, pedestrian fatalities are still rising making this vulnerable population a high priority for traffic safety. Crashes related to pedestrians represent 17% of fatal or serious injury crashes in California. Read more about this challenge area on page 21 in the SHSP.

Challenge Area: Bicycling

California’s growing network of bike lanes and paths make bicycling a popular mode of transportation. Bicyclists are considered vulnerable road users and are more susceptible to serious and fatal injuries when involved in a motor vehicle crash.

Bicyclist-involved crashes represent 7% of fatal or serious injury crashes in California. Read more about this challenge area on page 22 in the SHSP

SHSP Crash Data Dashboard

The SHSP Crash Data Dashboard was developed to provide SHSP implementers with direct access to crash data. The dashboard allows for filtering of the number and characteristics of fatal and serious injury crashes over the last 10 years. Some filtering options include:

  • SHSP Challenge Area
  • Crash Severity
  • Location: District, County, Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), and City
  • Crash Cause
  • Crash Time
  • Crash Party and Victim Demographics

New!

  • As of Spring 2023, provisional data, also known as unfinalized data, is now available in the SHSP Crash Data Dashboard. This is meant to provide traffic safety stakeholders access to crash data sooner than has been traditionally available. Learn more in the Spring 2023 SHSP E-Newsletter.
  • In the Spring 2022 SHSP E-Newsletter(link is external), Caltrans noted that in coordination with the Native American Advisory Committee (NAAC) and through geocoding efforts of University of California Berkeley SafeTREC, a filter was added to the tabs of the SHSP Crash Data Dashboard to allow all data to be filtered by whether a fatal or serious injury crash was within 5 miles of a tribal boundary.

Visit the Caltrans website to learn more about the California Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) program.

2020-2024 Strategic Highway Safety Plan

Front cover of the 2020-2024 SHSP

2020-2024 Strategic Highway Safety Plan Fact Sheet

2020-2024 CA SHSP Fact Sheet