Florida's community traffic safety team program

Institute of Transportation Engineers. ITE Journal, Mar 1999 by Rouse, Jeanette W

FLORIDA'S COMMUNITY TRAFFIC SAFETY TEAM PROGRAM

By Jeanette W Rouse, Coordinator, Community Traffic Safety Program, Florida Department of Transportation

Seventy-five percent of all crashes are the result of driver error. In the United States, 41,798 people lost their lives in motor-vehicle crashes in 1995, and over 3.2 million people were injured. In Florida alone, crashes claimed 2,847 lives, and an additional 228,589 were injured.

In an effort to reduce the number and severity of traffic crashes in Florida, Community Traffic Safety Teams (CTST) were formed. By using the team approach and combining law enforcement, emergency medical services, public education and engineering efforts, the agencies involved in traffic safety can address road improvements, driver education and awareness, and enhanced response times. This is a multidisciplined unified effort to reduce vehicle crash rates and improve driver performance. Forty-four teams across Florida cover more than 75 percent of the state's population. Over 800 CTST volunteers work together on comprehensive traffic-safety issues.

Ongoing programs and projects include: School-bus safety enforcement blitzes on an annual basis to stress the importance of drivers not passing stopped school buses; No Zone trucksafety demonstrations; Stop Red-Light Running campaign targeting high crash locations; Winners Do It!-a three-year campaign kicked off in Daytona with NASCAR drivers contributing public service announcements on seat belts, speeding and don't-drink-and-drive messages; a statewide Booze It and Lose It enforcement campaign that resulted in 542 drivingunder-the-influence arrests, 56 felony arrests and 131 drug arrests over the year; and school educational activities, safety fairs and bicycle rodeos.

After being on a steady increase from 1992 through 1995, statewide fatalities declined by over 40 from 1995 to 1996. We believe this multidisciplinary approach to traffic safety has lead to this decrease in fatalities on Florida's roadways.

For additional information, please contact Jeanette W. Rouse, Community Traffic Safety Program, Florida Department of Transportation, 11201 N. McKinley Drive, Tampa, Fla. 33612 USA; 813/975-6256; fax: 813/975-6278; Jeanette.Rouse@dot.state.fl.us.