IRTPO continues to focus on transportation safety for all users and abilities through the development of a Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (CSAP).

What is a CSAP?

The CSAP aims to reduce fatal and serious-injury crashes affecting all roadway users by analyzing data to determine roadway problems and identify potential safety projects. As part of the CSAP, we want to collaborate with community members and include your input into the decision making process.

Download the Virtual Meeting Presentation Slides: HERE

Watch the Town of Coupeville Council Meeting 10/8/2024: here: https://videos.files.wordpress.com/GfN0cnb7/10.08....

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) prioritizes roadway safety for all users, including people walking and biking, and aims to eliminate fatal and serious injury crashes. FHWA and USDOT has adopted the Safe System Approach, a holistic set of principles striving to anticipate human error while implementing strategies to reduce crash occurrence and manage impact energy to minimize harm that may be sustained in a crash. Transportation safety professionals can do so by designing and operating the transportation system with redundancies to protect everyone. Figure 1 above shows the five objectives of the Safe System Approach.

There are six key principles of the Safe System Approach:

• Death and Serious Injury is Unacceptable

• Humans Make Mistakes

• Humans are Vulnerable

• Responsibility is Shared

• Safety is Proactive

• Redundancy is Crucial

Five elements of the Safe System Apporach act as the framework for implementation to make the transportation system safer:

Safer People – Road user decisions and behaviors fundamentally increase or decrease the likelihood of a crash occurring and the severity of a crash when it occurs. The safety of all road users must be equitably addressed, including those who walk, bike, drive, ride transit, or travel by other modes.

Safer Vehicles – Vehicle design serves multiple goals, including efficiency, comfort, status, recreation, business activity, and safety of those inside the vehicle. Ideally, vehicles are designed and regulated to facilitate safe driving behaviors and minimize the frequency and severity of crashes using safety measures that incorporate the latest technologies.

Safer Speeds – Humans are less likely to survive high-speed crashes. Reducing speeds can accommodate human-injury tolerances in three ways: reducing impact forces, providing additional time for drivers to stop, and improving visibility.

Safer Roads – Designing transportation infrastructure to accommodate human error and injury tolerances can greatly reduce the severity of crashes that do occur. Examples include physically separating people traveling at different speeds, providing dedicated times for different users to move through a space, and alerting users to hazards and other road users.

Post Crash Care – People who are injured in crashes rely on emergency first responders to quickly locate and stabilize their injuries and transport them to medical facilities. Post-crash care also includes forensic analysis at the crash site, traffic incident management, and other activities.