New Hampshire: Highway Safety Improvement Program 2021 Annual Report
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2021-01-01
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Abstract:The overall purpose of this program is to achieve a significant reduction in fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads through the implementation of highway safety improvement projects. Infrastructure improvement projects are selected and justified by proven data-driven approaches. All highway safety improvement projects should be chosen and implemented with the goal of reducing fatalities and serious injuries on public roads and the achievement of state safety targets. Some projects will directly impact these performance measures through the implementation of engineering countermeasures, while others may advance the data systems and analysis capabilities of the state to more accurately identify locations with the highest potential for safety improvements, evaluate the performance of highway safety improvement projects, or identify high risk roadway characteristics and driver behaviors. In 2006, FHWA established a new approach to advancing safety by focusing on performance. In order to effectively meet performance targets, States must apply limited resources to the areas that are most likely to achieve results. The requirement to develop and regularly update a Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) ensures that this approach is maintained. NH annually tracks and reports performance measures including the numbers and rates of fatalities and serious injuries. Several other performance measures of specific interest to the State are listed in the NH SHSP. New Hampshire has embraced the goals and vision of the national Toward Zero Deaths (TZD) initiative. The State named its SHSP New Hampshire Driving Toward Zero in recognition of the national plan, and created a public outreach program with the same name to promote change in New Hampshire's safety culture (see nhdtz.com). The initiative recognizes that even one traffic death is unacceptable and sets the aggressive goal of reducing all deaths on the nation's highways, a goal virtually achieved in the aviation industry in the past several decades. Dozens of public and private stakeholders from across the State have come together in a collaborative effort to update and implement the strategies in the SHSP. The vision of Driving Toward Zero is embodied in NH's goal of reducing the number of fatalities and serious injuries by 50% by 2030, equaling an annual reduction of 3.4%. Maine and Vermont share this target, and to that end Maine DOT and VTrans have formed a tristate collaborative partnership with NHDOT to more effectively reach the collective regional goal. NHDOT has also incorporated the reduction of fatalities into our Balanced Scorecard, representing one of the twelve Strategic Objectives of the NHDOT. The concept of a focused approach has been further reinforced with requirements for data-driven decision making and resource allocation. 23 USC 148(c)(2), as amended by 1401(a)(1) of SAFETEA-LU, Identification and Analysis of Highway Safety Problems and Opportunities, delineates specific requirements for identifying safety problems and evaluating countermeasures. NHDOT has implemented the guidelines of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM), part D, in the selection and evaluation of safety improvements, wherever applicable. MAP21 and the subsequent FAST ACT have continued building on the concept of a safety data system that has the capability to identify key safety problems, establish their relative severity, and then adopt strategic and performance based goals to maximize safety. Recent improvements to the NH data system include the recent migration from the former Crash Management System (CRMS) to the current crash and citation database known by the moniker VISION, the compilation of the Model Inventory of Roadway Elements (MIRE) fundamental data elements (FDE), and the completion of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Traffic Records Assessment. One of the key findings of the Traffic Records Assessment was that performance measures for data quality are needed, including measures of timeliness, accuracy, completeness, uniformity, integration and accessibility in order to guide improvements to the data and data systems. The States are required to define a clear linkage between the behavioral NHTSA funded Highway Safety Program and the FHWA-funded HSIP via the State's SHSP. The 2012 version (2nd edition) of the NH SHSP identified nine critical emphasis areas (CEA) to be addressed by safety stakeholders in NH, listed below. In 2014, the Education and Public Outreach committee was created thus forming the tenth CEA. This committee has developed documentation that states the challenge, primary focus, and goals for this new emphasis area.
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