AASHTO Journal - AASHTOWare to Host Roadway User Safety Webinar

As the needs of vulnerable roadway users or VRUs grow in importance nationwide, AASHTOWare – a division of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials – is hosting a safety webinar on April 18 at 1 p.m. ET to address this critical topic.

[Above image by AASHTOWare]

VRUs – such as pedestrians, cyclists, and people who use wheelchairs – accounted for approximately 20 percent of the 42,915 killed in motor vehicle crashes in 2021, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; an increase of 13 percent over 2020.

In October 2022, the Federal Highway Administration issued new guidance to help states better protect VRUs – an effort strongly backed by AASHTO and state departments of transportation across the country.

“For far too long, we have seen a tragic loss of life on our nation’s roads and streets, and the recent significant increases in traffic fatalities are even more disheartening,” the group noted in a letter sent to FHWA in November 2022.

“Every state DOT in the nation and the AASHTO community stand ready with USDOT to do everything in our power to make our roads safer,” AASHTO said.

The safety webinar hosted by AASHTOWare – which offers a suite of transportation software products delivered through a collaborative business model with state departments of transportation across the country – features Jerry Roche from the FHWA’s Office of Safety and Dave Adams, safety program data manager for the Georgia Department of Transportation.

The webinar will provide in into understanding how federal agencies account for VRU needs in their transportation planning process and how Georgia DOT taps into the publicly-available “Social Vulnerability Index” developed by the Center for Disease Control to help the department better incorporate VRU needs into its project planning processes.

To register for this webinar, click here.