The 12 Days of Safety Myths
December 12, 2018
By Don Kostelec
We all love swag. No, not the kind that’s legal in Washington, Oregon, and elsewhere. I’m talking about the legal-everywhere swag you get when you register for conferences or approach a public agency’s tailgate tent at a local festival.
Who needs a safe systems approach when you can get to zero deaths with a thumb drive?
Have you ever considered how much money traffic safety offices spend on swag to promote their campaign? Who knew that “Toward Zero Deaths” thumb drives saved lives?
Maybe these highway safety offices are onto something I’m not aware of. Maybe spending $10,000 of taxpayers’ money on foreign plastic trinkets saves more lives than spending $10,000 on a RRFB. Being unsure, I decided to see if tchotchkes appeared in a simple search using the FHWA PEDSAFE Countermeasures selection system tool.
PEDSAFE is an online portal that allows you to see what types of safety measures can address specific road situations. I entered a few key characteristics of a roadway I cross frequently near my house: 4 lanes, school zone, speed limit less than 45 mph, minor arterial, transit service.
And the results…
Hmm. That’s weird. Street furniture. Sidewalks. Roadway lighting. Curb ramps. Better access to transit. Signs. No tchotchkes. Drat.
Oh..wait…”Ped/Driver Education.” Tchotchkes must be listed under that one since nothing screams “TRAFFIC SAFETY EDUCATION!” better than a case of reusable grocery bags, right?
So, let’s click on education and see what it spits out:
- “There are several broad approaches to education that can be conducted with moderate resources. They include:
1) highlighting pedestrian features when introducing new infrastructure;
2) conducting internal campaigns within the organization to build staff support for pedestrian safety programs;
3) incorporating pedestrian safety messages into public relations efforts;
4) developing relationships with sister state agencies and statewide consumer groups; and
5) marketing alternative travel modes.”
Foiled again. Maybe, just maybe, tchotchkes aren’t the magic bullet of a safe systems approach that some highway safety offices seem to think.
Well, maybe they’re beneficial to public involvement, if for nothing else than getting people in the door to learn about these education-based countermeasures. For that, I went to the the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Public Engagement Toolkit and its “searchable list of public engagement techniques with detailed descriptions” to see if it offers insights.
HOLY CRAP! There it is: Grocery Bags.
Grocery Bags have five stars for both “Rating” and “Cost Effectiveness,” rivaled only by GIS Mapping and Handheld Instant Voting. I can only imagine the consultant contract gravy train that yielded this public involvement Yelp. 
Who needs to add an RRFB to a project when you can give people grocery bags instead?
But what about the kids, you ask? Grocery sacks are totes ridic. How about drawstring backpacks? Totes adorbs!
Plus, if the highway safety office is working on child pedestrian safety they must fulfill their NHTSA grant obligation and lecture children them about the virtues of bright, reflective clothing, right? Let’s make them reflective. Totes magotes!
Or maybe, just maybe, there’s a better idea…wait for it…black Toward Zero Deaths bag!!! Cray cray, you say? Well, at least it matches the bodybags pedestrians end up encased in because DOTs blew their traffic safety wad on useless tchotchkes instead of proven safety countermeasures.
Wear bright clothing, kids! Oh, here’s your black Toward Zero Deaths Bag.
Final thoughts: I feel bad for the people who work in state DOT traffic safety offices. They have a job where they are in no way integrated into the broader engineering efforts of that agency. They’re often stuck out in the modular offices on the edge of a DOT’s headquarters complex. They get their NHTSA grants, they buy their tchotchkes, they do the only thing they’re empowered to do within that organization. I’m sure there’s a highway safety official who got wind of true Vision Zero concepts, became excited because it deviates from the same, tired education-based beat-your-head-against-a-wall approaches, and then tried to pitch it to the engineers elsewhere in the DOT catacombs. I’m sure they were shot down, then returned to their modular unit cubicle to fill out their next grant application, or a job application.
Other posts in the 12 Days of Safety Myths Series:
On the 2nd Day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me…Magical force field paint!
On the 1st day of Safety Myths, my DOT gave to me….bright, reflective vests!