AASHTO Journal - State DOTs Prioritizing Safety Through Public Campaigns

Across the country, state departments of transportation are engaged in a wide variety of safety campaigns – everything from work zone safety improvement initiatives to anti-speeding enforcement efforts.

[Above photo by the Montana DOT]

In mid-July, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte (R) and Troy Andersen – a Montana native who plays linebacker for the Atlanta Falcons – joined Chris Dorrington, the new director of the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT), to help launch the agency’s latest traffic safety campaign, “Engage Montana.”

“In Montana, we have more than 73,000 miles of roads … roads that help connect our economy, our people, and our communities,” the governor said at the “Engage Montana” kick-off event.

“We all rely on them [but] sometimes things happen and lives are impacted by events we can’t control ourselves,” he noted.

“Yet we can encourage others to be safe out there. While MDT can engineer safe roads through road design, we can’t always ensure that our loved ones make it home safely,” Gov. Gianforte added. That’s what ‘Engage Montana’ is all about. This whole program is to encourage drivers to engage in better behavior, to be safer out there, so they can all get home or get wherever they’re going safely.”

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation recently held a “Safer Together – Summer Safety Event” that featured children’s activities, educational booths, and demonstrations to give attendees a first-hand look at the agency’s safety initiatives across all modes of transportation.

The event is part of Wisconsin DOT’s “Safety-First Initiative,” which brings together subject matter experts from across all of the agency’s divisions to share knowledge, best practices, and research in order to leverage new technologies for data gathering and engineering countermeasures.

“Safety is at the center of everything we do – whether it’s our officers enforcing traffic safety laws, our engineers implementing new technologies to design better roads, or our team educating Wisconsinites to prevent crashes and injuries,” explained Craig Thompson, Wisconsin DOT’s secretary in a statement.

Thompson – who also serves as the president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and made safety one of his key emphasis areas for his term – added that, “This event demonstrates how everyone in Wisconsin has an important role in making our roads safer, including our day-to-day travelers.”

The Wisconsin DOT also recently joined the Wisconsin State Patrol, the Portage County Highway Department, community leaders, and industry partners at a media event on July 25 to emphasize the message of safe, responsible driving – especially in work zones.

“Safety is our top priority on Wisconsin roads, including the hundreds of work zones across the state,” explained Wisconsin DOT North Central Region Director Matt Bronson at the event – noting that more than 2,100 crashes were recorded in Wisconsin work zones in 2023, resulting in nine deaths and more than 700 injuries.

“People are taking more chances on the road with reckless behaviors – excessive speeds, looking at their phones or changing lanes suddenly. We’re all in this together,” he said. “Each of us has a role in keeping our roads safe. Motorists are in the driver’s seat to make a difference and protect our highway workers and emergency responders.”

Concurrently, northeastern and southeastern state DOTs recently joined forces as part of an regional anti-speeding and driver behavior improvement campaign aimed at making broad improvements to road safety

The Connecticut Department of Transportation joined their counterparts from Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont to support the “Slow Down New England” initiative; an anti-speeding enforcement effort to raise awareness and change dangerous driver behavior.

“We are thankful for our regional partners for supporting our shared mission to raise awareness of the dangers of speeding to keep all New England residents safe,” said Garrett Eucalitto, commissioner for the Connecticut DOT and current vice president of AASHTO, in a statement.

He noted that, in 2020, roughly 11,258 people were killed in speeding-related crashes nationally, accounting for 29 percent of all fatal crashes in the United States. Additionally, 87 percent of all speeding-related traffic fatalities on American roads occurred on non-interstate roadways.

For instance, in 2021 in Connecticut, of 307 total fatalities, 32 percent were speeding-related. In 2020, of 295 fatalities, 32 percent were speeding-related – up 50 percent from 2019.

[Editor’s note: AASHTO is hosting is second national “Safety Summit” this October in Houston. Click here to register.]

The Florida Department of Transportation joined a similar campaign with multiple states in the southeast – Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee – to reduce the number of speed-related crashes across the region and, ultimately, bring the number of traffic fatalities down to zero.

“Operation Southern Slow Down represents our collective vision towards creating a safer, fatality-free future on our roadways – one that goes beyond our engineering countermeasures and addresses the driver behaviors, like speeding, that place all road users at risk,” said Jared Perdue, Florida DOT secretary, in a statement.

“We are proud to partner with Florida’s law enforcement agencies, as well as our neighboring states, to remind motorists that their actions have real, life-changing consequences and that we all play a role in creating a safer driving environment for everyone,” he said.