Strategic Initiatives 

The Department of Transportation safety goal is to reduce the highway fatality rate to 1.0 per 100 million vehicle miles by 2008.  This strategic plan is a “One-DOT” effort, developed jointly by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to address speeding as a contributor to highway crashes and fatalities.  The strategies contained in this initiative incorporate recommendations of the Transportation Research Board contained in Special Report 254, Managing Speed: Review of Current Practice for Setting and Enforcing Speed Limits.⁸

The goal of the Speed Management Strategic Initiative is to reduce speeding-related fatalities, injuries, and crashes.  The strategies and actions of this initiative are grouped under five main objectives:

1. Better define the relationship between speed and safety.  Understanding speed as a highway safety issue necessitates accurately defining the relationships between speed limits, travel speeds, and safety.  Additional data is needed to identify and develop effective countermeasures and awareness campaigns to modify driver speeding behavior.

2. Identify and promote engineering measures to better manage speed.  Establishing speed limits that achieve public support is a prerequisite to developing any effective speed management program.  Greater use of speed management techniques and technology that can be built into the existing highway system or incorporated in the Intelligent Transportation System has the potential to improve voluntary compliance with speed limits and prevent traveling at inappropriate speeds.

3. Increase awareness of the dangers of speeding.  If the public is not aware or does not understand the potential consequences of speeding to themselves and others, they are less likely to adjust speeds for traffic and weather conditions, or to comply with posted speed limits.  Public information and education contribute to public support for speed management by increasing awareness of the possible consequences of speeding.

4. Identify and promote effective speed enforcement activities.  Enforcement is crucial to achieving compliance with speed limits.  Even if most drivers believe that the speed limits are appropriate and reasonable, and they comply within a small tolerance, enforcement is still necessary to ensure the conformity of drivers who will obey laws only if they perceive a credible threat of apprehension and punishment for noncompliance.

5. Obtain cooperation and support of stakeholders.  Traffic court judges, prosecutors, safety organizations, health professionals, and policy makers have a stake in establishing the legitimacy of speed limits and effectively managing speed to reduce fatalities.  Safety goals can only be achieved through the leadership of State and local authorities who are responsible for implementing most speed management measures.

These strategies are designed for implementation across various jurisdictions and on different types of roadways.  They incorporate a balanced, 3E approach -- engineering, enforcement, and education -- based on scientific research and when appropriate, include technologies designed to aid in mitigating a specific problem.

The status of each key action is indicated as in progress or planned.  Planned actions may not be included in agency budgets at this time.  Depending on funding availability, the timeframes indicate when the key action is to be initiated.