It seems like just yesterday, but it was more than 2 years ago that ITE released its 2024–2026 Strategic Plan. The plan contained two sentences that carried tremendous weight, as these statements were meant to plant a seed for many future activities.
The first was to “foster a cultural shift that prioritizes roadway safety,” and the second was to “elevate ITE’s leadership position in safety.” Bear in mind, this was a strategic plan, so the path toward achieving those goals wasn’t outlined—only a set of twin north stars meant to spark innovation and inspiration. ITE had always considered safety an important topic—sessions at Annual Meetings were always jam-packed; we advocated for Vision Zero resources at all levels; our Safety Council was never short of
volunteers; we pioneered Safe System Approach training; and many of our Districts and Sections held regular sessions, luncheons, and meetings where safety was the principal star of the show. Safety has always been interwoven throughout all our activities—traffic engineering, transportation planning, TSMO, complete streets, and education—there are elements of safety that form the foundation for almost every topic and issue that we deal with.
So, what was different this time? And why did we translate those two statements into a comprehensive Safety Roadmap and Action Plan with 30 new initiatives attached to it? The answer is quite simple, actually: because we needed to. ITE needed to take a stronger stand toward helping change a societal norm, one where 40,000 deaths in the United States and more than one million deaths worldwide on our roadways isn’t simply accepted as “the cost of having mobility.” We needed to stand up for all who lost loved ones and make it clear that any goal other than zero deaths on our roadways is unacceptable. We needed to remind everyone that safety is not a luxury, but a fundamental right.
If every one of our 18,000+ members helped prevent a fatality or crash by paying better attention to the driving task, avoiding distractions, and not driving while impaired—that’s a significant number of lives saved. And if we influence the next generation to do the same, we employ a multiplier effect and the savings increase exponentially.
Of course, changing culture goes beyond individual behavior. As planners, engineers, and policymakers, we need to be vocal in our beliefs that safety is a foundational element of every project and every decision. It is our duty of care to advocate for safe principles in every aspect of our jobs. We need to encourage decision-makers to reach beyond minimum standards where safety is concerned, to use design to influence human behavior, and to be open to considering new (and possibly non-traditional) collaborations where we can plan and engineer a transportation network that is safe for everyone.
I know it’s not always within our control—I’ve worked long enough in this industry to understand how decision-making varies, how politics and finance often drive conversations. But you start by winning one battle—successfully inserting a safety countermeasure into a project. Then you win another battle, and another battle, and
another battle. Nothing feels better than that first project completion where there is a measurable decrease in crashes and/or fatalities as a result. Make sure you read about the Safety Pledge on pages 27–28—and keep stacking those safety wins!