ECHS MILESTONES

The first meeting of the Executive Committee for Highway Safety was held on April 24, 2003 in Raleigh, NC. The meeting was deemed a big success and was a chance for the committee members to meet and to be briefed on items such as the purpose of the committee, the need for the committee and what the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan is and why N.C. needs a SHSP.

Since the AASHTO SHSP and North Carolina’s highway safety needs mesh so closely, it was recommended that North Carolina formally adopt the AASHTO Strategic Highway Safety Plan, as the Executive Committee’s “working plan” and make modifications as appropriate. It was agreed that N.C.’s SHSP would be a dynamic document that could and would be revised as needed to reflect identified highway safety issues within the State.

At the recommendation of former Deputy Secretary Conti (former Committee Chair), the committee adopted the AASHTO plan for use and implementation in North Carolina.

The committee decided that the decision making process should be data driven. The Traffic Safety Unit of the Traffic Engineering and Safety Systems Branch analyzed North Carolina crash data for all 22 key emphasis areas (where appropriate) as outlined in the SHSP. The results of the analyses were presented to the Executive Committee to assist the committee in prioritizing issues needing to be addressed.

Mission and vision statements were created and adopted by the committee. These are:

The Executive Committee unanimously adopted the national goal of 1.0 fatalities/100 MVM by the year 2008. Presently, NC’s rate is approximately 1.6 fatalities/100 MVM, therefore, we face many challenges.

The Executive Committee reviewed the analyses of the crash data provided as it pertained to the key emphasis areas of the SHSP. The committee then discussed the data with their staff and individually ranked their top five priorities. All of the individual rankings were summarized and the initial six working groups were developed.

To date; most of the working groups have met many times and are continuing to research the causes of the target crashes along with developing specific strategies aimed at addressing the identified needs.

Once a strategy is developed, it is prioritized and then in priority order, it is presented to the Executive Committee for approval. Upon approval, the strategy is assigned to the “Host” agency that would normally be responsible for the issue. It is then the responsibility of the host agency (with assistance from the Executive Committee as needed) to take the necessary steps to see that the strategy is implemented.