Community Traffic Safety Programs: Review and Analysis

NHTSA · 1994 · ROSA P / United States. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

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Summary

This 1994 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reviews and analyzes Community Traffic Safety Programs (CTSPs), aiming to describe their current status, identify factors contributing to their success or failure, and understand their evolution as organizational structures for local highway safety. The study was motivated by the need to move beyond temporary, single-agency funding models toward permanent, multi-agency coordination capable of addressing complex, multi-modal safety issues. By 1993, over 334 CTSPs served approximately 100 million people across the contiguous United States, functioning as locally owned and managed franchises that partner with State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs). The analysis characterizes the structural and operational diversity of these programs. Most CTSPs are housed within public sector organizations, such as police departments (29%) or health agencies (23%), and cover jurisdictions ranging from single towns to multi-county regions. They typically employ a coordinator, often with a background in law enforcement or health, and rely on a representative task force comprising public and private sector members. Countermeasure priorities are heavily focused on occupant protection (81%), impaired driving (78%), and child restraints (75%). Financially, budgets vary widely, with approximately one-third of programs operating under $30,000 annually and another third exceeding $75,000; roughly half of all CTSP activity is supported by volunteer, in-kind, and local match resources rather than direct federal or state funding. The report identifies key determinants of success, emphasizing that effective CTSPs must maintain local control while integrating multiple public and private stakeholders. A strong, representative task force and a stable organizational position within the community hierarchy are critical. The coordinator’s role is pivotal, requiring strong marketing, organizational, and administrative skills rather than purely technical expertise. The study suggests that CTSPs are most effective in communities with populations between 50,000 and 500,000. Smaller communities may lack sufficient resources for comprehensive programs, while larger cities often already possess viable single-issue organizations, making comprehensive CTSPs rare and complex in those settings. The significance of the findings lies in the recommendation that states view CTSPs as long-term, high-investment, labor-intensive initiatives rather than short-term experiments. The report advises against extremes, such as funding only a few high-profile model programs or attempting to launch CTSPs in every community simultaneously. Instead, it advocates for intensive monitoring and support, particularly for new programs. Ultimately, the study concludes that successful CTSPs provide a continuing structure for implementing traffic safety initiatives, leveraging federal and state resources alongside local volunteer efforts to achieve a safety impact greater than the sum of individual contributions. For communities unsuited to the full CTSP model, alternative structures like county traffic safety boards or single-issue committees are recommended.

Key finding

Successful CTSPs function as locally owned and managed franchises that partner with State Highway Safety Offices to coordinate multi-agency resources, whereas ineffective programs often lack local control or stable organizational integration.

Methodology

review

Sample size: 334

Provenance

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Topics

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• traffic safety culture

Information type

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• Applied Guidance: countermeasure evaluation