According to the latest data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in February, 2022, 31,720 people died nationwide in motor vehicle crashes from January 2021 through September 2021. This is roughly a 12% increase from the same time period in 2020, and the highest number of fatalities "during the first nine months of any year since 2006 and the highest percentage increase during the first nine months in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System’s history."
In California, according to provisional SWITRS data for 2019, the number of pedestrians killed in 2019 was 1,030, an increase of 48 fatalities from 2017. The number of bicyclists killed in the same period decreased from 164 in 2017 to 157 fatalities in 2019. These losses of life are unacceptable and preventable. As acknowledged in strategies like Vision Zero, Toward Zero Deaths and the Road to Zero, no one should be killed or suffer severe injuries on our roadways and there is a moral imperative to ensure and increase safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.
To reach the goal of zero deaths on our roadways, traffic safety professionals and advocates have called for changing the way we think about road safety and taking a different approach. In fact, on January 27, 2022 the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary announced the release of the federal government's new National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS), which outlines steps and strategies for traffic safety stakeholders to address this crisis of roadway fatalities and serious injuries. At the core of the NRSS is the U.S. DOT department-wide adoption of the Safe System approach. Visit the new National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) website to access the report and related resources.
The Safe System Approach
Until recently, the expectation that traffic deaths are inevitable was the main focus of approaches to road safety. In order to create safer communities, safety efforts focused on changing human behaviors to prevent crashes and injuries.
The Safe System approach counters this, with safety efforts to save lives instead focusing on the understanding that humans make mistakes, human bodies are fragile, and crashes are likely to happen. Now, attention is refocused on the reduction of fatal and severe injuries when a crash occurs through the use of vehicle or roadway design and the management of our infrastructure.
Safe System Principles
According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), there are six principles that underlie the Safe System Approach:
- Deaths and injuries are unacceptable: While no crashes are desirable, the Safe System approach prioritizes crashes that result in death and serious injuries, since no one should experience either when using the transportation system.
- Humans make mistakes: People will inevitably make mistakes that can lead to crashes, but the transportation system can be designed and operated to accommodate human mistakes and injury tolerances and avoid death and serious injuries.
- Humans are vulnerable: People have limits for tolerating crash forces before death and serious injury occurs; therefore, it is critical to design and operate a transportation system that is human-centric and accommodates human vulnerabilities.
- Responsibility is shared: All stakeholders (transportation system users and managers, vehicle manufacturers, etc.) must ensure that crashes don’t lead to fatal or serious injuries.
- Safety is proactive: Proactive tools should be used to identify and mitigate latent risks in the transportation system, rather than waiting for crashes to occur and reacting afterwards.
- Redundancy is crucial: Reducing risks requires that all parts of the transportation system are strengthened, so that if one part fails, the other parts still protect people.
Safe System Elements
A Safe System also addresses every aspect of crash risk through five elements, or layers of protection:
- Safe Road Users
- Safe Vehicles
- Safe Speeds
- Safe Roads
- Post Crash Care
Listed below are a selection of resources related to the Safe System Approach to road safety. This page will continue to be updated with resources as we come across new information, so please continue to check our site for updates. Have a resource to share? Please contact us at safetrec@berkeley.edu.
Resources
- California Safe Speeds Toolkit - This toolkit from UC Berkeley SafeTREC follows the work of the Zero Traffic Fatalities Task Force (ZTFTF) and is intended to help local jurisdictions across California set safer speed limits that accommodate all road users using Safe System principles. This toolkit consolidates key research on Safe Speeds from the ZTFTF Research Synthesis by the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies, provides details on speed limit setting flexibilities under the existing California framework, highlights select speed limit setting case studies from cities across California, and points local jurisdictions toward next steps in pursuing safe speed limit setting.
- FHWA Safe System Assessment Framework - This guide presents a framework for accessing how well existing infrastructure and road environments align with the Safe System approach. The framework includes all ‘pillars’ of the system, including an assessment of issues relating to the road and travel speeds. It also ensures consideration of other pillars which are typically included less often in infrastructure projects. These include road user issues and vehicle-related issues. Post crash care is also considered.
- Demystifying the Safe System Approach, Vision Zero Network (VZN) - The Vision Zero network explains the Safe System approach in detail by providing six examples of the approach to street design, ways to use the approach in practice, and resources for future guidance.
- What is a Safe System Approach? (OTS) - The Office of Traffic Safety embraces a Safe System approach, which focuses on both human mistakes and human vulnerability, and provides a framework to design a system to protect everyone. Safe roads, safe speeds, safe vehicles, safe road users and post-crash care all reinforce multiple layers of protection to protect everyone.
- Safe System Strategies for Bicyclists and Pedestrians Toolkit (CPBST) - The Toolkit provides a starting point for anyone looking to plan a bikeable and walkable community. It lists potential community improvements that can help create a safer community with the Safe System Approach.
- National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) - The U.S. Department of Transportation released the NRSS in January, 2022. The strategy outlines the Department’s adoption of the Safe System approach to significantly reducing serious injuries and deaths on our Nation’s highways, roads, and streets.
- Zero Deaths - Saving Lives through a Safety Culture and a Safe System (FHWA) - The FHWA adopted the Zero Deaths vision, influenced by the Vision Zero strategy, which recognizes that even one death within our transportation systems is unacceptable. All road users deserve safe mobility options and the Safe System approach is how to get there.
- Safe System Resources (ITE) - The ITE’s Safe System webpage contains an explanation, framework and resources on the Safe System Approach. ITE created the webpage alongside the Road to Zero Coalition and members of the RTZ Safe System Working Group
- Vision Zero Network (VZN) - The VZN helps communities across the United States address traffic deaths and injuries. Based on the Vision Zero strategy, the VZN aims to eliminate all traffic deaths and injuries across the United States while increasing safe, healthy, equitable mobility for all.
- Road to Zero: A Plan to Eliminate Roadway Deaths (NSC/Road to Zero Coalition) - The Road to Zero creates a plan to eliminate roadway deaths across the United States by 2050. The coalition created a report to help guide their work to reach zero roadway deaths and encourage anyone to join their coalition.
- Toward Zero Deaths - Toward Zero Deaths is a strategy to eliminate all serious injuries and deaths on our highway systems nationally.
- Safe Systems and the role of systems science (CSCRS) - Safe Systems and system sciences are interwoven strategies that the Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS) applies to their work in order to reduce traffic injuries and deaths. The CSCRS web page explains the principles for each strategy and how they work together.
- Safe System Approach and Vision Zero (ACTC) - The Alameda County Transportation Commission's Safe System Approach webpage provides resources on safety best practices and examples of implementation of projects that utilize the Safe System Approach and Vision Zero principles.
Publications, Reports
- Advancing traffic safety through the safe system approach: A systematic review (May, 2024): This systematic review, conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, analyzes 82 relevant studies categorized based on the SSA pillars: safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, and post-crash care. The review provides insights into SSA's effectiveness in reducing road traffic fatalities and injuries, exploring implementation challenges and opportunities, including policy initiatives, institutional frameworks, and stakeholder collaborations.
- A Safe System Guide for Transportation: Sharing this Approach to Lead Your Community to Action (November, 2023): This report from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety presents recommendations for framing Safe System interventions to facilitate public acceptance and support.
- The Safe Systems Pyramid: A new framework for traffic safety (September, 2023): In this article, the authors propose a new framework "for prioritizing policies and interventions, known as the Safe Systems Pyramid, that contains five ascending levels – Socioeconomic Factors, Built Environment, Latent Safety Measures, Active Measures, and Education." This framework is designed to shift the thinking of engineers, planners, and policy makers that shape the transportation system.
- Safety Report for Speed Management - This report will help practitioners understand the impacts of speed on traffic safety and explore the link between speed management and the Safe System Approach by introducing a five-stage framework on the Safe System Approach for Speed Management.
- SafeTREC 2023 Traffic Safety Fact Sheets - SafeTREC releases fact sheets which features traffic safety data and trends at the national and state level on a variety of road safety topics, with a focus on the Safe System approach.
- National Roadway Safety Strategy (NRSS) - The U.S. Department of Transportation released the NRSS in January, 2022. The strategy outlines the Department’s adoption of the Safe System approach to significantly reducing serious injuries and deaths on our Nation’s highways, roads, and streets.
- FHWA Public Roads, Winter 2022. This special edition of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Public Roads magazine features a series of articles about the Safe System approach to road safety, including topics such as the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), speed management, application of the Safe System, evaluating intersection designs according to the Safe System, and more.
- Putting the Pieces Together: Addressing the Role of Behavioral Safety in the Safe System Approach (2021) - Cambridge Systematics' report, developed in partnership with the Governor's Highway Safety Association, provides guidance to State Highway Safety Offices (SHSO) on highway safety planning and implementing behavioral safety measures within the Safe System approach. The report provides a framework for how SHSOs and their partners can effectively integrate behavioral safety and the Safe System approach across SHSO operations and programs.
- Recommendations of the Safe System Consortium (2021) - The Consortium’s report details their recommendations to reimagine road safety and equity in the United States. The recommendations set forth by the Consortium aim to change the course of safety on our roads and create more equitable transportation systems.
- Safe System Strategic Plan (2021) - The Road to Zero Coalition created the Safe System Strategic Plan in order to create a guide for the strategies, focus areas, measures of success and specific actions needed for infrastructure owners and operators in the United States to fully adopt the Safe System Approach. The plan aims to change mindsets, scale and practices through the education of decision makers, influences and practitioners.
- The Road to Zero: A Vision for Achieving Zero Roadway Deaths by 2050 (2018) - The Road to Zero report creates a vision of a world where no roadway deaths occur by the year 2050. By envisioning a safer future, we can work together to inform and coordinate traffic safety efforts in the present.
- Shared Responsibility for Road Safety in Safe Systems Context (2018) - This fact sheet from UC Berkeley SafeTREC discusses a principle integral to a Safe Systems Approach, shared responsibility for road safety.
- The Goal of Road Safety in the Safe Systems Context (2018) - This fact sheet from UC Berkeley SafeTREC provides an overview of the Safe Systems Approach and how it relates to both current road safety practice and initiatives such as Vision Zero.
International Resources
- The Safe System Approach (PIARC) - PIARC’s (World Safety Association) road safety manual, based on the Safe System Approach, allows countries worldwide to create transportation systems that are free of traffic deaths.
- Safe System principles (National Road Safety Strategy, Austraila) - Australia’s National Road Safety Strategy, based on the Safe System Approach, provides the principles needed to create safer mobility for all.
- Sustainable & Safe: A Vision and Guidance for Zero Road Deaths (WRI, GRSF) - The World Resources Institute and Global Road Safety Facility created this report to create the vision and guidance needed in order to achieve zero road deaths globally.
Events, Trainings, Programs
- Implementing the Safe System Approach Course - The Implementing the Safe System Approach course is a new certificate-based blending learning course that will provide an in-depth understanding of the Safe System Approach and its application. This course will consist of pre-recorded modules delivered by subject matter experts and four live instructor-led discussion sessions.
- Building a Safe System Foundation for Your Plan - This is the second webinar in the series Fundamental of Vision Zero Action Planning. This session will focus on Building a Safe System Foundation for your Plan. Specifically, we’ll cover the following: Fundamental differences between the Safe System approach and traditional roadway safety plans; Building buy-in for the Safe System approach; How to avoid common pitfalls when developing Action Plans; Share tips from practitioners at the local and regional levels based on experiences building Safe System-oriented Plans. Read more and register here.
- CSCRS Research to Practice Bytes Series (January - December 2023) - The Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS) Research to Practice Bytes series focuses on multidisciplinary research and practices to advance transportation safety. The series frequently features principles and practices related to Safe Systems and the role of systems science, core themes in CSCRS’s initiatives. Recordings and slides to past events are available on the Series webpage and registration is open for the upcoming session:
- March 22, 2023: What Can We Learn from Fatal Automated Vehicle Crashes? A Closer Look at Crash Narratives in Media. Register now.
- Advancing Pedestrian Safety Through a Safe System Approach (October, 2022) - In this webinar from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), a roundtable of panelists discussed the state of pedestrian safety; planning for a Safe System; and ideas for improving pedestrian safety through inclusive road infrastructure, vehicle design and safety technology, and the policy changes needed to implement a proactive, integrative, and shared responsibility approach to safety. A case study of how the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, population about 60,000 people, achieved zero road fatalities was also featured.
- GHSA 2022 Annual Meeting General Session: Pushing Toward a Safe System (September, 2022) - In this webinar, a panel of national traffic safety leaders will explore what states and communities should focus on to ensure safe road users, safe roads, safe vehicles, safe speeds and better post-crash care under the Safe System approach, which has been adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
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Applying the Safe System Approach to Pedestrian and Bicyclist Safety (June, 2022) - In this Focus Cities webinar, the Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training Program team shares their experiences utilizing the adapted Safe System Approach in their work, resources they have created for the communities they work in, and where they’d like to see the Safe System Approach grow in the future.
- Expanding Our Reach: The Role of State Highway Offices in the Safe System Approach (February, 2022) - In this webinar from the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA), a panel of experts discuss how U.S. DOT’s new National Roadway Safety Strategy lays out a framework for collaboration within the Safe System approach, how State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) can create innovative partnerships with diverse communities and new stakeholders to strengthen the safety net that prevents roadway injuries and fatalities.
- Addressing the Role of Behavioral Safety in the Safe System Approach (January, 2022) - This webinar from the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) offers in-depth look at how behavioral safety fits within the Safe System approach to traffic safety. Participants discussed GHSA’s report, Putting the Pieces Together: Addressing the Role of Behavioral Safety in the Safe System Approach, which includes actionable recommendations illustrating how organizations and advocates can work together to prevent roadway deaths.
- NTSB Most Wanted List Roundtable Series: The Safe System Approach (July - October 2021) - The Most Wanted List Roundtable Series from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) brought together experts from across the United States in a series of virtual panels to explore how our infrastructure and road designs can help us reduce the severity and number of crashes, and eventually eliminate traffic crashes altogether.
- CSCRS Safe Systems Summer Learning Series (July - August 2021) - The Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS) Summer Learning Series brought together panelists to discuss how we can collectively meet community safety, health, and equity needs through the use of the Safe Systems Approach.
- CSCRS Research to Practice Bytes Series (January - December 2022) - The Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety (CSCRS) Research to Practice Bytes series focuses on multidisciplinary research and practices to advance transportation safety. The series frequently features principles and practices related to Safe Systems and the role of systems science, core themes in CSCRS’s initiatives.
- Improving Rural Road Safety with the Safe System Approach 6-part webinar series (June - December 2021) - The Rural Safety Center’s Webinar series examines how we can improve road safety in our rural communities with the Safe System Approach.
Community Approaches
- Conducting Community Engagement with a Safe System Lens (SafeTREC) - Few resources, if any, address how to apply the Safe System framework in community engagement and planning efforts. In this brief, UC SafeTREC and Cal Walks demonstrate how they adapted FHWA’s Safe System elements and principles to not only make it more applicable for grassroots community engagement but also to strengthen the impact of the approach.
Safe System In Practice
- Improving Pedestrian Safety on Urban Arterials: Learning from Australasia (June, 2023): This report documents the findings from an international study tour undertaken as part of the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of International Programs, to research Australian and New Zealand approaches to reducing pedestrian fatalities and serious injuries on urban, signalized arterial. The report identifies key innovations in policy, planning, and design that may be successfully applied in the United States to help reverse the current trend of increasing pedestrian and other vulnerable road user fatalities and serious injuries on arterial roadways – the corridors on which a majority of U.S. pedestrian fatalities occur. The report focuses on policies that effectively prioritize, standardize, and fund engineering practices that facilitate integration of new and emerging pedestrian safety strategies on urban signalized arterials. The report also identifies data-driven planning practices and design standards and features that effectively integrate pedestrian safety considerations into urban signalized arterial projects through a Safe System approach, in conjunction with performance-based planning and programming that is coordinated with land use planning.
- Highway Behavioral Strategies for Rural and Tribal Areas: A Guide (July, 2023): This BTSCRP Research Report from the Transportation Research Board
presents results from a multidisciplinary research project that developed a toolkit of behavioral traffic safety countermeasures for highway safety partners focused on rural road safety (e.g., tribal authorities, local government, law enforcement, emergency responders, engineers) to reduce the frequency and severity of motor vehicle crashes on roads in rural areas. The guide supports the Safe System Approach, and provides strategies around safer people, safer roads, safer vehicles, safer speeds, and postcrash care.
- Community Pedestrian and Bicycle Safety Training (CPBST) Program's Report Archive: This webpage archives the CPBST Program's work from 2009 to present day. Each report provides a summary for each workshop proceeding, as well as ideas identified during the process and recommendations for pedestrian/bicycle safety projects, policies, and programs. Each report provides a look into the planning process and how communities across California are working to implement the Safe System Approach to make their neighborhoods safer places to walk and bike.
- Safe System (Alameda County Transportation Commission): This webpage includes resources on the Safe System Approach and Vision Zero implementation, including documents and video examples of implementation. This webpage will be updated as new resources become available.
- Institutionalizing the Safe System Approach in Local Road Safety Plans (Institute of Transportation Engineers, May 2023): In this new technical brief from ITE, "local agencies will find a roadmap to help them navigate through the process of incorporating the Safe System Approach into Local Road Safety Plans while meeting SS4A federal grant requirements. The brief describes 16 tenets to help local agencies integrate these concepts and programs, with the goal of achieving Vision Zero."
- Vision Zero and Safe System in practice resources (Vision Zero Network, 2023): The Vision Zero Network has an extensive resource library that is home to resources related to defining Vision Fundamentals and the Safe System approach. They also have several that provide an overview of the Safe System in practice, including Wins and Wrecks for Vision Zero, Principles, Policies & Practices to Advance Vision Zero, and Demystifying the Safe System Approach.
- The Safe System Approach In Action (International Transport Forum, 2022): The joint International Transport Forum–World Bank Working Group on “Implementing the Safe System” has developed a theoretical framework to guide those seeking to implement the Safe System approach. The framework describes how to improve the safety of roads, vehicles, road-user behavior and other road-safety pillars through the various key components of a Safe System. Experts analyzed road-safety activities and interventions in 17 case studies from all continents with this framework in mind.
- Recommendations of the Safe System Consortium (Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, 2021): In early 2021, the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy (JHCIRP) and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) convened a group to discuss the potential for reimagining road safety and equity in the United States. This report of recommendations is a result of this convening, with guidance on implementing the Safe System approach and addressing safety and equity.
- Lessons Learned from Development of Vision Zero Action Plans (Federal Highway Administration, 2021): The purpose of this report is to summarize and generalize two communities’ Vision Zero plan-development processes. This document draws from Daly City (California) and Macon-Bibb County’s (Georgia) experiences and summarizes the common elements that were applied for developing a VZAP. This report also includes information on opportunities, challenges and lessons learned.
- Case Studies on Implementing the Safe System Approach in the United States (Institute of Transportation Engineers, 2021): The case studies in this ITE report outline on-the-ground practices in the following three areas of need: major thoroughfares, intersections, and pedestrians.
- Implementing Safe Systems in the United States: Guiding principles and lessons from international practice (Eric Dumbaugh, Florida Atlantic University, and Wes Kumfer, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, CSCRS 2019): This report examines the state-of-the-practice in Safe Systems. It is divided into two sections. The first examines the concept of Safe Systems, focusing on our emerging understanding of crash causation, as well as how this understanding may be applied to integrate safety considerations into transportation practice in the United States. The second presents a review of the practices of the four countries with the most established Safe Systems programs—Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia, and New Zealand—and details how each has structured their approach to road safety around Safe Systems principles.
- Safe Systems Synthesis: An International Scan for Domestic Application (UNC Highway Safety Research Center, 2019): This report transmits the results of a wide-ranging literature and policy scan of international practices that fall under the scope of Safe Systems.