The theme of this Campaign Safe & Sober Planner is Public Safety: Community Partners. Many different groups invest major resources into traffic safety programs, working for better injury control. All of these groups have a common goal: to reduce the number of deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicle crashes. In the course of this work, some of the enormous economic costs associated with crashes can be saved. Some communities have initiated a Safe Communities concept to reach their goals. One important characteristic of a Safe Community is developing new partnerships.

Some partnerships in traffic safety seem natural because some groups have worked together for many years (such as police and the media). These traditional partnerships are important for the work that Safe Communities do. There are other potential partnerships that, at first glance, seem unconventional: schools working with the judiciary, or police joining forces with the insurance industry, or health providers linking to local businesses are just a few examples.

In this Campaign Safe & Sober Planner, many new partnerships are introduced to try to help communities recognize the potential payoff of joining forces with new groups, in addition to the more traditional partners that have been in place for years. New partnerships have new payoffs!

In this Planner, icons are used to identify different constituent groups. The icons represent employers, community and civic groups, emergency medical and fire services, law enforcement, health care providers, engineers, and educators.

As you review the pieces in this Planner, you will see that some highlight one or more icons that identify which partners are most appropriate for working with that piece. The icons are suggestions, but demonstrate that these messages are appropriate for many different groups. There are other potential partners not identified with an icon, such as auto insurance companies, or umbrella organizations representing them, and judges and prosecutors who confront impaired driving charges on a regular basis.

Partnerships involve building working relationships with many of these groups in coalitions to reach a common goal of reducing crashes, injuries, and deaths. The individual pieces in this Planner, all of which put a strong emphasis on community partnerships, are designed to help you reach your objectives.

Employers

Challenge

Motor vehicle crashes cost employers over $55 billion in 1994 in medical and property insurance, property damage, and lost productivity. Crashes drive up employers’ costs for health benefits such as Workers’ Compensation, Social Security, and private health and disability insurance. On-the-job crashes cost employers almost $22,000 per crash and $110,000 per injury.

Employers pay for injuries that occur both on and off the job. Over half of the 323,000 injuries in 1994 that occurred on the job forced employees to miss work. Employers are interested in off-the-job crashes because they account for 78 percent of the health fringe benefit costs and 88 percent of these crashes result in injuries. Regardless of whether an employee is injured on or off the job, a company misses his or her productivity because of a vehicle crash.

Action

With costs like these, more employers are finding it good business to institute traffic safety programs, mandatory safety belt policies, alcohol and drug non-use policies, employee assistance programs, and safety outreach that extends beyond the company door.

Employers should build partnerships in the local community. In addition to pooling financial and human resources, manpower, and sharing costs, community support is vital for long term gains.

Benefits

Instituting a program in the workplace contributes to the bottom line profits of employers and has a far-reaching influence well beyond the workplace. Effective habits instilled at work transfer to employees at home, to their families, and to their communities. Protecting employees from motor vehicle crash injury is simply good business. A comprehensive traffic safety program in the workplace saves employers $50,000 for every million vehicle miles of travel. Family-related interventions can lower health fringe benefit costs too. Benefits include a savings of $85 for each child safety seat and $30 for every bicycle helmet used. Protecting employees from motor vehicle crash injury can be a profitable investment of time and resources.

Community and Civic Groups

Challenge

Community and civic organizations represent constituent groups with a mission. Some, but not all, are well-organized and focused with a clear-cut mission. They know what they want and how to achieve it: they only need to assemble the human resources and create enthusiasm among members so that they will work hard to reach the group’s goals. Some, but definitely not all, have strong leadership. Some reach decisions by consensus of a core group of officers. And some are lucky enough to have a reliable source of funding that provides enough money to operate without constantly facing fiscal crises.

The challenge of community groups is to have a well-articulated mission, strong and committed leadership, and enthusiastic members who will help the group meet its goals. Often, finding the financial resources to meet the goals set by the organization’s mission is a major preoccupation of its leaders and members.

Action

Community and civic groups need to establish a clear mission statement, which will help them to identify what information (data) they need to gather to understand an issue at hand and how to strategize to achieve their goals. Strong leadership will help group members participate effectively in group activities, maximizing the effectiveness of the group.

One strategy often pursued involves identifying other community groups with overlapping goals as partners. Community and civic organizations rarely have the resources to achieve their goals by themselves. Forming partnerships with other groups enhances the resources of both groups and increases the likelihood that their common goals can be met.

Benefits

Well-organized, effective community groups are an important component for community problem solving. Community groups, pooling resources with other private and public groups and organizations, can help reduce injuries and deaths caused by motor vehicle crashes.

Health Care Providers

Challenge

Some health care providers might say that they are too busy treating seriously injured people to concern themselves with prevention. But the number of injuries that result in death or require hospitalization is relatively small compared with the number of minor-to-moderate injuries they see. For each person who dies from an injury, 19 are hospitalized. For each injury death, 212 persons received treatment for injury in emergency departments and 354 received medical care (including telephone advice) for injury.

In a way, treatment is already too late. Health care providers won’t be successful in reducing injuries if they confine themselves to the treatment phase alone. Health care providers must identify risk factors and involve themselves in injury prevention in the first place.

Action

Be a safety advocate with patients. Take time to talk to patients about injury prevention. Remind them of the importance of safe behaviors such as safety belt use, avoiding drinking and driving, and bicycle and motorcycle helmet use. Ask about safety habits during the patient screening process. Remind parents of their role in teaching children about pedestrian safety and in maintaining their child’s safety seat and safety belt habits.

Take advantage of teachable moments. A patient who is being treated for an injury sustained while unbelted, unhelmeted, or when under the influence of alcohol will be uniquely receptive to prevention advice. Talk to patients about healthy lifestyle issues.

Be a safety advocate in the community. Take a leadership role in Safe Communities. Be willing to share your knowledge and expertise, form strategic alliances, and reach out to new partners to promote priority programs and new initiatives. Whenever possible, leverage your resources with the resources of other partners involved in traffic safety programs and injury control. For instance, law enforcement personnel need all the support they can get from other members of the traffic safety community. Send letters to the editor and let your local police chief know that he or she is doing a good job. Help train others about traffic injuries and support injury control legislation. Strong laws and effective law enforcement, along with public information, encourage safe behaviors.

Benefits

Good prevention programs save lives and reduce injuries.

Educators

Challenge

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children of every age from 5 to 14 years old. In 1995, there were 2,794 traffic fatalities in the zero to 14 age group, and children under 15 years old accounted for 10 percent of all the people injured.

Over 35 percent of all deaths for young people ages 15 to 20 result from motor vehicle crashes. In 1995, 6,220 young people died in motor vehicle crashes. Two out of five motor vehicle fatalities involve alcohol. Over 70 percent of the young people who died were not using a safety belt or wearing a motorcycle helmet. In 1995, almost one quarter of those who died in speed-related crashes were youth. Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) experience poorer driving performance during early adulthood.

From pre-school to graduate school, teachers and school administrators influence the attitudes and behaviors of children and young adults, teaching much more than the “three Rs.” Instilling a healthy respect for traffic safety will pay off for many years.

Action

Prevention programs directed at youth coupled with public awareness campaigns have helped reduce fatalities for young people. Teachers can sponsor peer-to-peer programs such as Students Against Driving Drunk (SADD) and support Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Remove Intoxicated Drivers (RID). The first step in changing a behavior is to increase awareness of the problem, then change a person’s attitude about that behavior. Teachers and educators are uniquely positioned to change behavior early in the driving experience. They should establish partnerships with community organizations, joining with traffic engineers, program planners, and citizens to develop traffic safety programs tailored to the problems in their community.

Benefits

Efforts directed at younger ages clearly have a big payoff. Lives can be saved in significant numbers. Since 1975, it is estimated that 15,667 young lives have been saved by the passage of minimum drinking age laws. Lap and shoulder safety belts, when used, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front seat occupants by 45 percent and reduce the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 65 percent. Child safety seats reduce the risk of fatal injury by 69 percent for infants and 47 percent for toddlers.

Law Enforcement

Challenge

Today law enforcement agencies are asked to do more with less. They must be responsive to traffic and crime and be proactive in providing policing to their community. For example, since 1985, the number of licensed drivers has increased 13 percent, registered vehicles have increased by 18 percent, and the number of vehicle miles traveled has increased 33 percent. As more motorists drive more on increasingly congested roads, traffic safety issues become significant to communities, directly affecting law enforcement agencies.

Nationally, while crime has gone down by 6.8 percent since 1991, the number of traffic crashes has essentially remained the same. Sworn police personnel resources over the last five years have increased only one-tenth of one percent, challenging law enforcement managers to be creative and efficient with their resources.

Action

First, identify the specific problem to be solved in the community. Use current local information (data) to support the direction of resources. Injury and cost data are critical because they can be tied to real events, real people injured, and real dollars spent at the hospital and rehabilitation center. Next, find out who else in the community also has a stake in the problem. Initiate a cooperative partnership with as many partners as possible and share creative solutions and resources.

Benefits

By encouraging partnerships and identifying other stakeholders, the responsibility and ownership of the problem are no longer yours alone. Financial responsibility, equipment, and human resources can be shared. The public sees all partners as positive influences in their community. Emergency medical providers, fire services, hospital administrators, insurance companies, traffic engineers, businesses, schools, and neighborhoods are likely partners and often a good source of volunteers.

Emergency Medical and Fire Services

Challenge

About one out of every four adults has been involved in a motor vehicle crash at some time that was severe enough to require medical attention for injuries. A recent survey of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows that most Americans express strong confidence that emergency workers would know what to do regardless of the type of emergency. Almost three-fourths expected that an ambulance would arrive within 10 minutes of an emergency call. Enjoying this high level of public confidence, emergency medical and fire services are in a unique position to positively influence the safety behaviors in their communities and they have taken a lead in the role of injury and fire prevention.

Action

Go out into the community and identify problems using current information (data). Analyzing the data may lead to the discovery that you are not alone in the battle to solve a particular problem. Take the time to identify others who may have a vested interest in solving the problems and create partnerships to solve the problems efficiently. Link your data with data from other sources. Take the lead in bringing partners together so that everyone has an opportunity to decide the best solution to the community problems and to share in providing the necessary resources.

Take the lead in educating the community. Educate and train others. Help train others about injury prevention, especially Bystander Care. Many people will stop to help after a crash, but may not know the six simple things they can do to help before the rescue workers arrive.

Benefits

Emergency medical and fire services will no longer carry the burden of being solely responsible for using their strained resources to tackle a problem that the entire community has a stake in solving. The most significant benefit is coming closer to accomplishing each agency’s overall mission by helping to create a safer and more efficient community for those who rely so heavily upon emergency medical and fire services for security and peace of mind.

Engineers

Challenge

America’s roadways are second to none, thanks to the various engineering disciplines that make sure people and goods move safety and efficiently on our nation’s highway network. In 1973, the Highway Safety Act established the Safety Construction Program to reduce the number and severity of traffic crashes -- as well as the potential for these crashes -- through engineering improvements to hazardous highway locations, sections, and features.

Action

Engineers are uniquely qualified to identify specific traffic and roadway design problems in a community that would benefit from an engineering solution. The safety of various roadway features, such as roadway geometrics, sight distance, shoulder width, median barriers, traffic signs, signal timing, and pavement markings, are features that affect and control traffic flow. Using crash data, engineers can identify the traffic volume on a particular segment of road, document how it changes during peak travel times, and identify high crash locations.

Engineers should work with the State Governor’s Highway Safety Representative and the State Safety Management System manager to determine particular traffic problems that should be investigated. High crash locations on a busy main arterial roadway might be contributing to increased congestion during peak transit hours, which in turn, might be leading to more incidents. The solution might be to install rumble strips to alert drivers to reduce speed at an oncoming curve, or may be to install barriers that direct lanes of traffic at a busy merge point.

Join established Community or Corridor Traffic Safety Programs or Safe Communities programs. Share expertise and knowledge of engineering solutions as part of a comprehensive approach to solving traffic safety problems.

Benefits

Engineering solutions are often the best remedy for a particular roadway problem. Traffic engineers design, construct, maintain, and operate our streets and highways. In addition, local engineers are familiar with various sources of funding that can be applied to safety countermeasure development.