The U.S. Department of Transportation has made a clear commitment to the philosophy that communities are in the best position to affect improvements in motor vehicle and other transportation-related safety problems. We know that when a community takes ownership of an issue, change happens!
The Safe Communities approach represents a new way community programs are established and managed. All partners participate as equals in developing solutions, sharing successes, assuming risks, and building a community structure and process to continue improvement of community life through the reduction of injuries and costs.
A Safe Community expands resources and partnerships, increases program visibility, and establishes community ownership and support for transportation injury prevention programs. As the Safe Community concept addresses all injuries, transportation and traffic safety becomes positioned within the context of the entire injury problem.
In addition, the Safe Communities approach emphasizes the need to involve the medical, acute care and rehabilitation communities. These groups need to be actively engaged as integral partners in preventing injuries.
Four main characteristics define Safe Communities:
The Safe Community approach provides exciting opportunities for transportation safety programs, as well as many payoffs for safety and injury control advocates as we move forward and focus on reducing injuries and saving health care costs. Safe Communities is a unique approach to transportation safety advocacy and motor vehicle injury control. The objective of Safe Communities is to promote community-based solutions to address transportation safety and other injury problems.
The Safe Communities Service Center will help further this objective by monitoring and tracking the various activities being conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), as well as our other federal, state and local partners. Then we will put that knowledge and information to work to help Safe Community coalitions, traffic safety advocates, injury control practitioners and others with coordination of their efforts.
The Center also catalogs information, resources and materials so we can link your community coalition directly to providers who can service your specific needs. The Center is continually identifying a national network of Safe Community practitioners, marketing best practices, facilitating new partnerships, promoting citizen involvement, evaluating campaign progress, and initiating a number of other handy and helpful ways to build Safe Communities.
Centrally located at the NHTSA regional office in Fort Worth, Texas. In addition to services provided within this interactive web site, it provides one-stop shopping for your community's needs for information and resources related to constructing Safe Communities.
For more information and materials:
Safe Communities Service Center c/o NHTSA South Central Region 819 Taylor Street, Room 8A38 Fort Worth, TX 76102 Phone: 817/978-3614 Fax: 817/978-8339 E-mail: safe. communities@dot.gov
Link to Safe Communities -- copy this link and paste it into your web editor
<a href="http://www.nhtsa.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/menuitem.404f848a3e46fc67ba8e5f8dcba046a0" title="Welcome to the Safe Communities Service Center" target="_blank">NHTSA Safe Communities Service Center</a>
