Our intention for this Summit was to move beyond informative presentations and towards action on this important work. The role of culture in improving the effectiveness of traffic safety systems is critical.
This page is an archive providing access to presentations and other documents created for and by this event. Please feel free to contact our Center for Health and Safety Culture director if you have questions or would like further information.

2010 Summit Proceedings

Audio voice over, with presentations, for the Monday morning sessions are provided below. Basic pdf’s of each presentation, for viewing purposes, are also provided below.
The following presentations have been made available courtesy of the speakers and are the sole property of the originator (speaker/author). As such, they should not be used, modified, etc. without the originators express permission.

WELCOME:

• Michael Griffith, Director, Office of Safety Integration, Federal Highway Administration
  NSRTSC 2010
  

KEYNOTE SESSION: RURAL TRAFFIC SAFETY CULTURE OVERVIEW
This session focused on the rural context and identifying the behavioral, social and political factors in rural areas that are responsible for (1) the high traffic fatality and serious injury rate, (2) the political reluctance to introduce strong traffic safety policy, and (3) the community resistance to government mandated safety interventions. The format involved three presentations by relevant organizations with time for audience participation and questions. The goal of this session was to focus participants on the rural context and provide background for the later sessions dealing with potential solutions to the rural cultural and institutional barriers.

• Nicholas Ward, Professor, Montana State University/Western Transportation Institute
  Presentation (pdf)
  

• Peter Kissinger, CEO, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
  Presentation (pdf)
  

• John Dawson, Chairman, EuroRAP, London
  Presentation (pdf)
  

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF TRAFFIC SAFETY DRIVER CULTURE
This interactive session presented different perspectives on driver safety culture and engaged participants in dialogue related to challenges and opportunities for positively improving traffic safety driver culture – especially in rural areas. Participants began to engage in the process of developing a common framework to measure and apply behavioral change strategies predicted on traffic safety culture.

• Dee Allsop, Heart+Mind Strategies
  Presentation (pdf)

• John Lee, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  Presentation (pdf)
  

• Larry Wallack, Portland State University
  Presentation (pdf)
  

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF TRAFFIC SAFETY ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
There are many organizations that impact traffic safety – law enforcement, local and state road departments, tribal entities and federal agencies. From the top down, or from the bottom up, how can safety culture move through an organization? This session built upon ongoing local, state, tribal and/or national initiatives to discuss how to achieve and accelerate organizationally a change in traffic safety culture.

• Tony Giancola, NACE
  Presentation (pdf)
  
• Bernie Arseneau, Minnesota Department of Transportation
  Presentation (pdf)

• Henri Headdress, Fort Peck Reservation Roads Program

THE SCIENCE OF THE POSITIVE – FRAMEWORK FOR IMPROVING HEALTH AND SAFETY CULTURES
The Science of the Positive (SotP) is a theory of transformation for individual and collective cultures. Through decades of research and application, the SotP approach has evolved to become an holistic science-to-action framework for posing research questions and evaluating the effectiveness of intervention strategies. While numerous definitions of “safety cultures” abound, they all seem to operate from a common deficit-based perspective that essentially views “culture as a problem to be solved.” The most pressing need in safety culture research is to correct this misperception and establish a common positive framework for action. The Science of the Positive identifies three core domains that direct intermediate variables toward sustained cultural transformation of health and safety outcomes.

• Drs. Jeffrey Linkenbach and Jerome Evans, Western Transportation Institute National MOST of Us Institute for Positive Community Norms, Montana State University
  Presentation (pdf)

Behavioral Breakout Session Presentations:

• What cultural factors are perpetuating teen driver distraction and how can teen driver distraction be reduced by changing culture?
  B1 Breakout
• What are the main differences in rural and urban culture that relate to the differences in crash risk between these regions?
  B2 Breakout
• What are the cultural barriers to drivers accepting safety interventions (e.g., speed cameras) and enforcement programs (e.g., random roadside stops)?
  B3 Breakout
• What can we do to change the culture of speeding?
  B4 Breakout

Organizational Breakout Sessions Presentations:

• What Institutional changes should we consider to more effectively address rural traffic safety?
  O1 Breakout
• How can we (and what specific steps can we) take to better understand and overcome the culture of complacency?
  O2 Breakout
• What are the challenges and benefits of adopting a zero death goal?
  O4 Breakout
• CLOSING KEYNOTE
  Dr. Ileana Arias, Principal Deputy Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
  Closing Keynote