The National Center for Rural Road Safety announces their inaugural ½ day, virtual, mini-conference on Applying the Safe System Approach for Rural. The mini-conference will be held on Wednesday, January 28, 2026 and will consist of three separate 1.5 hour sessions spaced 30 minutes apart. The mini-conference will be free and will be recorded and available as an archive on the National Center for Rural Road Safety's website. For more details and to register for each of the three sessions, see below.
Session 1: Overview on Applying the Safe System Approach for Rural
Date: January 28, 2026
Time: 9:00 am to 10:30 am MT/11:00 am to 12:30 pm ET
In this portion of the mini-conference, you will learn the basics of the Safe System Approach for rural areas. This includes:
- What the Safe System Approach is from both the traditional perspective (5 elements and 6 principles) and then from the public health pyramid perspective.
- What traffic safety culture is and how to apply traffic safety culture and the Positive Cultural Framework into the Safe System Approach for rural.
- How to gauge your agency’s and community’s readiness for implementing the Safe System Approach at the organizational level.
Session 2: Safer Road Users in the Rural Context
Date: January 28, 2026
Time: 11:00 am to 12:30 pm MT/1:00 pm to 2:30 pm ET
In this portion of the mini-conference, you will learn examples for applying the Safe System Approach for safer road users in the rural context. This includes:
- How to implement a rural focused program for safer road users.
- Promising practices for preventing impaired driving in rural areas.
- Narratives and message frames to employ toward inspiring more people in rural communities to better understand and appreciate road safety improvements.
Session 3: Safer Roads in the Rural Context
Date: January 28, 2026
Time: 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm MT/3:00 pm to 4:30 pm ET
In this portion of the mini-conference, you will learn examples for applying the Safe System Approach for safer roads in the rural context. This includes:
- How to use FHWA’s Safe System Approach Design Hierarchy for the rural context.
- Understanding self-explaining road design as it relates to suburban to rural facility transition zones.
- Using crash data and kinetic energy principles to prioritize intersections for safety improvement.
Visit our Safe System Approach to Road Safety webpage for more information on the Safe System Approach, as well as resources on how to implement it in real-life road safety applications.