New article in the ITE Journal: The Transportation Safety Pandemic

"The good news is we already have the vaccine for the transportation safety pandemic. We just must choose to use it."

How can we apply the critical lessons we are learning from the COVID19 pandemic to change our thinking and approach to transportation safety? In the September issue of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Journal, co-authors Meghan Mitman, Principal at Fehr & Peers, Rachel Carpenter, Chief Safety Officer at Caltrans, and Offer Grembek, Co-Director at SafeTREC, discussed what can be learned and important safety parallels to consider in the article, "The Transportation Safety Pandemic." 

For instance, when it comes to thinking about prevention, the authors note:

• For COVID - that means improving personal hygiene. For transportation safety, that means changing road user behavior (for example, limiting speeding and DUIs)
• For COVID - that means social distancing. For transportation safety, that means changing road design and operations (for example, separated bikeways)
• For COVID - that means contact tracing. For transportation safety, that means vehicle warning systems (for example, lane departure warning)
• For COVID - that means masks. For transportation safety, that means changing vehicle design (for example, automated braking systems)

Read the full article.