Optimal traffic safety culture is a shared social climate where motor-vehicle safety is valued and pursued with rigor. A culture of safety implies a systematic commitment by institutions, agencies, organizations, society, and individuals to recognize and address the unacceptable toll of motor-vehicle-related deaths and injuries, and to appropriately apply the most effective prevention strategies possible (Sleet, Dinh-Zarr, & Dellinger, 2007). Each year, nearly 40,000 Americans are killed and 4,000,000 are injured on our roads, at an economic cost of $230 billion (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2010; National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA], 2002). These deaths and injuries represent the leading cause of death among 1 to 34 year-olds in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2010 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control., Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) [online] (2010) [cited 2010 July 22]. Available from URL: www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars.CDC, 2010). Effective interventions exist to prevent these deaths and injuries, but are underutilized. Part of this underutilization is the result of a public acceptance of crashes as the price we pay for our mobility. Changing this public acceptance will require a change in traffic safety culture. (A) Reprinted with permission from Elsevier.
Abstract