Local Notes

Volume 5, Number 3 - Summer 2002

South Jersey Traffic Safety Alliance

Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) are collaborative structures that coordinate regional transportation planning and provide a forum for decision-making among state and local officials, the operators of transit systems, and the public. In New Jersey, the South Jersey Transportation Planning Organization (SJTPO), an MPO for Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, and Salem counties, decided to expand its activities to traffic safety by establishing the South Jersey Traffic Safety Alliance (referred to locally as "the Alliance"), a regional Safe Communities effort building on the strengths of its interagency parent organization.

The Alliance's mission is "to assist all county and municipal agencies and organizations with problem assessment, development, implementation, and evaluation of educational programs, enforcement programs, engineering projects and traffic and pedestrian safety." In addition to representatives from the organizations included in the SJTPO, Alliance members include police officers, emergency rescue personnel, educational and safety professionals, and the general public.

Teresa Thomas, Alliance Coordinator, says that MPOs can provide traffic safety coalitions with a number of benefits: They "can utilize safety management system data, act as a voice for the region, provide access to funding and resources, and be essential to identifying traffic safety needs." For example, every other year the Alliance conducts a Safety Needs Assessment Survey of more than 1,000 key informants in its four-county area to help identify priorities for action. Thomas reports that in the 1998 survey, "the most frequently mentioned traffic safety concern was lack of sidewalks. This prompted SJTPO to use Federal funds for a project that will install sidewalks and other pedestrian safety treatments in five locations."

The Alliance works with smaller local organizations on traffic safety issues, often providing resources and an impact that local groups could not achieve on their own. For example, it was able to work out an innovative arrangement with the Federal Highway Administration to use Federal planning funds to purchase eight radar speed monitor trailers, which are used by county partners and local police departments to prevent speeding by providing a visual warning to drivers, as well as to collect data on road use and speed. Other community activities in which the Alliance has participated include the Boost America Campaign (in conjunction with SAFE KIDS and the United Way), a Bicycle Safety Bowl, a Child Passenger Safety Seat Inspection Campaign (conducted by safety seat technicians whose certification was supported by the Alliance), and a Saved by the Seat Belt Club, in which people whose lives have been saved because they used seat belts share their stories and promote seat belt use.

For more information, contact Teresa Thomas at (856) 794-1941 or Teresa@sjtsa.org.

SAFE KIDS/Safe Communities in Montana

In 2000, the Montana legislature discontinued the practice of using reinstatement fees from drivers convicted of impaired driving to fund local impaired driving prevention programs. Under the leadership of the Governor's Highway Safety Representative, Albert Goke, the Montana Traffic Safety Bureau (MTSB) developed a strategy to preserve local impaired driving prevention activities by offering traffic safety funding to communities that were willing to establish a coalition to address impaired driving prevention and occupant protection, using a model that combines features of Safe Communities and SAFE KIDS. Kent Mollohan of the MTSB reports:

We saw many advantages in combining the SAFE KIDS and Safe Communities programs. First was the utility of joining with a private, nonprofit organization with a history of social improvement efforts and a concern for children. It was an advantage that Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies [which sponsors Montana SAFE KIDS] was involved in many projects in addition to SAFE KIDS. Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies [HMHB] had a structure and network that is experienced in fundraising and getting projects launched and finished. We were already working with HMHB to deliver public information and education on a variety of traffic safety, public health, and injury prevention issues. Much of the safety and health literature promotes collaborative efforts and coalitions. We followed this advice on surviving in times of diminished resources.

In addition to providing funding, MTSB helped ensure that the 17 new SAFE KIDS/Safe Communities (SKSC) coalitions were data driven by preparing a data book for each of the counties that housed one of the programs. MTSB is also going to establish a NETS chapter (see page 1) to help the coalitions expand their activities into Montana's workplaces.

Patty Carrell, Montana SKSC Coordinator, says that National SAFE KIDS responded enthusiastically to this opportunity for Montana: "This is the kind of creativity you need to get resources to local programs within the state." In addition to highway safety funding, many of the coalitions use SAFE KIDS BUCKLE UP and General Motors grants to fund child passenger safety seat activities. Carrell explains that the SKSC model allows coalitions to engage in a broad range of injury prevention efforts:

The coalitions do seat belt surveys that feed into state DOT data as well as help the local programs track the effectiveness of their occupant protection activities. They participate in Buckle Up America and ABC mobilizations. They engage in social norms campaigns, including "Most of Us," which focuses on impaired driving and seat belt use. They get local law enforcement involved. Every coalition is a bit different. The coalitions also do other types of injury prevention projects. Once you have a foundation laid-once you learn to do public awareness activities, track data, work with the schools and law enforcement-you can use this structure to do other types of traffic safety and injury prevention activities.

For more information, contact Patty Carrell at (406) 449-8611 or pattycarrell@hotmail.com.

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