In a Total Safety Culture the organization's members feel responsible for regularly identifying and acting on safety-related objectives, many going "beyond the call of duty" to address unsafe conditions and behaviors. This paper addresses the application of the Total Safety Culture notion to traffic safety issues and discusses the creation of a Total Safety Traffic Culture. Behavior-based safety, an actively caring model, and the benefits of using positive reinforcement are highlighted. Catalysts and barriers to a cultural shift are considered throughout, as is the need to teach basic behavioral-science methods throughout our culture. The ideas offered in the paper can be used to identify specific problem targets, customize and validate intervention designs, derive relevant outcome measures, and demonstrate successive progress while traffic safety goals are continuously selected and achieved.
Abstract