Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector: Special Report 289 (2007)

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3 The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector This chapter describes workers in the road safety workforce in the pub- lic sector and approximates their number. The first half of the chapter describes the evolution of this workforce over the past several decades, during which period a multidisciplinary road safety profession gradually emerged. In the second half, estimates are made of the size of the work- force, particularly those who spend all or most of their work time on road safety. The estimates suggest a surprisingly modest number of road safety workers, even under a fairly liberal definition of the positions that warrant inclusion. EMERGENCE OF A ROAD SAFETY PROFESSION The concept of a road safety profession has taken many decades to bring about. For much of the 20th century, the rising number of deaths and injuries from motor vehicle crashes was viewed as alarming but treated largely as an intractable side effect of mobility. Before World War II, most crashes were viewed as a consequence of bad driving or bad luck, and little attention was given to occupant protection in the event of a crash. Crash records were not detailed and were sporadically collected. To a large extent, those who investigated crash causation and prevention did so on a part-time basis, and usually from the vantage points of traffic engineering and law enforcement.1 Following a sharp increase in traffic fatalities after World War II, President Truman convened a series of national road safety conferences. The conferences brought national attention to the need for better crash 1 See De Silva (1942) for a detailed account of the treatment of highway safety before World War II. 35 

36 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector records and analyses, more uniform traffic laws, driver education in high schools, and stricter standards for licensing. By the 1950s, a more scientific and holistic approach to improving road safety was emerging, as motor vehicle crashes and their consequences were recognized as hav- ing multiple causal and contributing factors. Experts in statistics, epi- demiology, mechanical engineering, and biomechanics were examining the causes and mechanisms of crash injury. By gathering and analyzing crash data, investigating actual crashes, and crash-testing vehicles, they began to understand how motorists sustained injuries and the protective effects of safety belts and other devices such as cushioned dashboards and collapsible steering wheels. Coincidentally, the public investment in Interstate highways prompted more research on such topics as sign legibility, lighting, ramp geometry, guardrail placement, and lane mark- ing. This research gave highway engineers a better understanding of how to design safer highways. The growing body of safety knowledge did not prompt immediate changes in public programs, laws, or standards governing the safety of highways, vehicles, and operations. In 1960, responsibility for road safety programs at the federal level, for example, remained spread among sev- eral agencies, including the Bureau of Public Roads, the Interstate Com- merce Commission, and the Division of Accident Prevention of the Public Health Service. At the time, few state highway offices or officials had “safety” in their titles. However, a small, multidisciplinary safety workforce was emerging, populated not only by traffic engineers and traffic police but also by experts drawn from the fields of psychology, statistics, economics, planning, public policy, and education. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Highway Safety Act of 1966 and other federal legislation created new government agencies and pro- grams with safety missions that began to spur the demand for safety experts and workers at the federal, state, and local levels. As a condition for federal grants, the governor of each state was required to appoint a road safety representative responsible for developing and ensuring the imple- mentation of statewide road safety programs. States would therefore need to employ more experts in safety engineering, program planning and eval- uation, and data collection and analysis. Much of the workforce demand, however, would emerge from local governments, which were required to 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 37 implement the new safety programs. For example, Virginia passed legisla- tion requiring the creation of road safety commissions in each of its 134 counties and cities. New York required local jurisdictions with popu- lations exceeding 50,000 to establish traffic safety boards responsible for coordinating all local road safety activities. These localities and thousands of others across the country began hiring safety personnel in categories such as traffic records analysts, accident investigators, police traffic safety officers, and teachers for driver education programs. While the Highway Safety Act created demand for road safety work- ers, it did not address the need to educate and train workers in the safety field. Consequently, a number of studies were undertaken during the late 1960s and early 1970s on safety workforce needs and attendant training and instructional requirements. The studies were sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) (Booz, Allen, and Hamilton 1968), the American Association of Junior Colleges (Bishop and Sheehe 1968), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (Smith 1969), the National Association of Counties (National Association of Counties Research Foundation 1970), the Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility (Bishop et al. 1971), and the National Safety Council (Traffic Education and Training Conference 1972). While interest in the road safety workforce peaked during the early 1970s, other demands were being placed on government agencies that would increase the need for experts in other fields such as environmental protection. New federal legislation such as the Clean Air Act Amendments, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the Archeological and His- toric Preservation Act compelled state transportation agencies, metropol- itan planning organizations (MPOs), and local highway agencies to hire more experts in environmental planning and engineering, archeology, biology, and cultural resource management. Likewise, growing public con- cern over illegal drug use and criminal activity caused state and local police agencies to hire, train, and deploy more officers for drug enforcement. During the 1980s, a number of developments in road safety occurred that have had enduring effects on the road safety profession and the ori- entation of road safety programs. Mothers Against Drunk Driving was established in 1980 and quickly became a highly effective advocate for poli- cies to reduce impaired driving. Although it had been a long-standing 

38 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector safety problem, impaired driving became the subject of a multifaceted attack that included increases in the minimum drinking age, more strin- gent blood alcohol standards, prearrest breath-testing, swifter and more severe licensing sanctions, driver education, and public information and enforcement campaigns. Many state and local police departments estab- lished special units focused on apprehending and gathering evidence on impaired drivers. And many new specialists began entering the road safety field to support these efforts, including toxicologists trained in testing for alcohol and other drugs, prosecuting attorneys dedicated to DUI adjudi- cation, and psychologists and sociologists knowledgeable in prevention and deterrence strategies. The treatment of impaired driving is representative of how U.S. public policy started to become more balanced and comprehensive in addressing road safety. Safety policies and programs increasingly addressed the problem from the multiple angles of the driver, the road, and the vehicle and in its precrash, crash, and postcrash dimensions. Public poli- cies also used a wider array of educational, engineering, enforcement, and economic strategies. There are several examples. To reduce crashes involving teenagers, high school driver education programs were cou- pled with graduated licensing requirements, parent awareness programs, and stricter enforcement of the minimum drinking age. Improvements in truck safety were sought through a combination of inspections, driver licensing standards, and limits on daily hours of driving, as well as truck- related highway designs such as shoulder rumble strips and larger guardrails and barriers. To encourage the use of occupant restraints, state govern- ments passed mandatory seat belt laws, funded campaigns to publicize their safety benefits, and urged the development of more ergonomic designs for seat belts and child safety seats. In recent years, several state departments of transportation have begun to incorporate road safety audits into their efforts to enhance safety. Such audits are formal safety performance examinations of existing or planned roads or intersections performed by an independent team. According to the Institute of Transportation Engineers, at least 10 states have insti- tuted audit programs.2 They are viewed as a proactive safety tool for new 2 http://www.roadwaysafetyaudits.org. 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 39 projects and as a way for states to prioritize safety improvements on their systems. Instituting a systems approach to road safety management remains challenging for a number of reasons, including the institutional factors discussed in the previous chapter. Nevertheless, the success of such efforts to date suggests that this approach is essential in achieving continued safety gains in the face of growing motor vehicle travel. Such an approach will have significant implications for the road safety workforce. SCALE AND SCOPE OF THE ROAD SAFETY WORKFORCE Estimation of the scale and scope of the current road safety workforce and prediction of its future dimensions are difficult because of the thou- sands of public agencies with road safety responsibilities and the diversity of expertise required for safety management. This is true of the number of full-time road safety professionals and even more so of the many other workers who influence road safety. Distinguishing Between Road Safety Professionals and Contributors Road safety professionals are defined in this report as workers who spend all or most of their workday on matters pertaining directly to road safety, such as assessing safety performance and needs; planning, developing, and implementing safety initiatives; and taking specific actions related to safety. Examples of full-time safety professionals are road safety engineers, directors and staff of governors’ highway safety offices, safety regulators, safety data analysts, safety program develop- ers and evaluators, and patrol officers dedicated to traffic safety. Certain other occupations that have a direct bearing on safety, such as traffic engineers, also merit inclusion as full-time road safety professionals, even though some of these workers may not view themselves as safety workers. In most public agencies only a handful of employees are described as safety professionals either in their job titles or in organizational charts. Accordingly, many workers who contribute to road safety on a regular 

40 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector basis do not view themselves as part of the road safety workforce. One prominent example of an important safety contributor is the chief engi- neer of a highway agency, since that person prioritizes projects and makes budgetary decisions on a regular basis that can have major safety implications. Further down the organizational chart, a maintenance engineer has many day-to-day responsibilities critical to ensuring safe roads, including the removal of snow and ice from pavement surfaces and the maintenance of drainage, guardrails, and lighting systems. Many other highway agency personnel, such as construction engineers and bridge designers, have responsibilities that are clearly important to ensur- ing road safety. Other public agencies have similar situations; command personnel in police agencies and planners in regional and metropolitan planning organizations are examples. In the following estimates of the road safety workforce at the federal, state, and local levels, an attempt is made to distinguish between safety professionals and contributors, although at times the distinction is dif- ficult to maintain. Estimates are developed for safety professionals in all cases, and in many cases for contributors as well. Federal Agencies Three USDOT agencies with prominent roles in road safety are the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), and the Federal High- way Administration (FHWA). Safety is the primary mission of the first two agencies. In the case of FHWA, ensuring safety is a critical agency goal along with other goals such as enhancing mobility and preserving the highway infrastructure. Elsewhere in the federal government, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) administers the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), which has a staff devoted to road safety analyses and initiatives. NHTSA NHTSA employs nearly 600 people, most of whom are located in the agency’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. The workforce is split among the various program offices of NHTSA’s statistical analysis, rulemaking, enforcement, vehicle safety research, and research and program devel- 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 41 opment divisions. All of NHTSA’s divisions and programs, with the pos- sible exception of the Corporate Average Fuel Economy program, are focused exclusively on safety. The agency’s workforce is multidisciplinary because its programs cover vehicle safety compliance, regulatory analysis, consumer information, impaired driving, occupant protection, emer- gency medical services, and behavioral and human factors research. The workforce consists of engineers, statisticians, economists, lawyers, psy- chologists, and program evaluators, among others. On the basis that about one-third of NHTSA’s workforce provides administrative, infor- mation technology, financial management, and other common support services that do not necessarily require safety expertise or training, a rough approximation is that NHTSA employs about 400 full-time road safety professionals. FHWA FHWA has about 2,800 workers (Table 3-1). A large portion of this workforce—about 45 percent—consists of engineers. The agency also employs many planners, environmental specialists, economists, and lawyers. FHWA personnel with the most direct responsibility for road safety work in the Office of Safety, which provides state and local highway agencies with safety training tools, statistics, and technology information. TABLE 3-1 FHWA and FMCSA Workforces by Occupation FHWA FMCSA Information technology 49 16 Human capital 48 11 Finance 106 7 Legal 50 34 Program management 134 57 Physical scientist 19 1 Planning 117 0 Engineering 1,257 4 Transportation specialist 226 105 Transportation industry specialist 0 0 Safety inspector 6 650 Other administrative and support 784 185 Total workforce 2,796 1,070 SOURCE: USDOT 2006. 

42 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector The Office of Safety has about three dozen professional staff. In addition, FHWA conducts safety research at its research center in McLean, Virginia. About 20 researchers, engineers, analysts, and technologists work in the Office of Safety R&D. The role of the Office of Operations in administering programs in traffic control, intelligent transportation systems, emergency operations, and hazardous materials transportation gives it an important influence on safety. It has a staff of about 50. The Office of Operations R&D employs 12 researchers. USDOT’s Intelligent Transportation System Joint Program Office, which is closely connected to FHWA’s Office of Operations, has a workforce of 15 professionals. Within the Office of Planning, FHWA has a six-member safety planning team. All of these program staff, total- ing about 150, are full-time safety professionals. In addition, each of FHWA’s 52 operating divisions (located in each state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico) employs three to six safety and operations engineers, totaling about 250 nationally. A reasonable approximation is that FHWA employs about 400 full-time safety professionals. In addition, the agency’s professional staff in many other offices, including infrastructure (bridge and pavement technolo- gies), policy studies, planning, and professional development (National Highway Institute), have responsibilities that contribute to road safety. About 800 engineers are employed in these other offices; the committee assumes that all 800 are safety contributors. FMCSA FMCSA employs nearly 1,100 workers in its offices for research and analysis, bus and truck standards, enforcement and compliance, and spe- cial safety programs. About 650 are safety inspectors, including about 275 border enforcement personnel (see Table 3-1). Other FMCSA staff administer grants for state motor carrier enforcement and safety pro- grams, provide technical assistance to industry and state and local agen- cies, assist in the development of safety standards and campaigns (e.g., hours-of-service rules, “Share the Road Safely” initiatives), and admin- ister R&D programs related to safety such as intelligent vehicle crash avoid- ance technologies. The number of program managers, engineers, and transportation specialists at FMCSA totals about 175. These 175 workers 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 43 are full-time safety professionals. The 650 FMCSA inspection personnel at the field level are assumed to be key safety contributors. CDC The Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention Team of CDC’s NCIPC works closely with NHTSA in developing and evaluating behavioral and engi- neering solutions to prevent motor vehicle crash injuries and deaths. The team consists of approximately 12 professional staff with expertise in multiple disciplines including epidemiology, preventive medicine, and public administration. Federal Totals The preceding estimates suggest that four federal agencies with road safety responsibilities collectively employ about 1,000 full-time road safety pro- fessionals and another 1,450 workers who contribute to road safety (see the table below). Full-Time Road Safety Others in Workforce Contributing Professionals to Road Safety NHTSA 400 — FHWA 400 800 FMCSA 175 650 CDC (NCIPC) 12 — Total ∼1,000 1,450 State Government The main agencies within state governments that employ road safety professionals are state departments of transportation, the offices of gov- ernor’s highway safety representatives (GRs), departments of motor vehicles (DMVs), state police, and the injury prevention and control programs of departments of public health and safety. State Departments of Transportation The departments of transportation in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico employ a total of about 270,000 workers, including about 30,000 personnel in management and other profes- sional positions. As might be expected, a major professional occupation 

44 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector is civil engineering. Every few years, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials sponsors a survey of its member departments of transportation to determine the number and average salaries of common occupations. The most recent survey was con- ducted in 2004 by the Iowa Department of Transportation (AASHTO 2004). Analyses of the survey data indicate the total and average num- ber of positions for management and professional occupations given in Table 3-2. How many of the tens of thousands of workers employed by state departments of transportation can be characterized as full-time safety professionals or as key contributors to road safety? As a starting point, the positions shown in italics in Table 3-2 are assumed by the com- mittee to have important safety influence. They include professionals in executive and management positions as well as workers in imple- mentation positions. The secretary, major division chiefs, legal direc- tor, and chief finance officer have important roles in managing and guiding resources available to safety programs and initiatives. While some of the engineering and planning staffs are full-time safety pro- fessionals, all are likely to have responsibilities with safety implications. The total number of workers in these occupations for the 52 state departments of transportation is about 5,500, an average of about 100 per state. Although all 5,500 of these workers influence road safety to some degree, only a fraction are full-time safety professionals who spend most of their work time on safety. To approximate this subset, more specific information provided to the committee by several individual states is used to extrapolate to the nation. Information provided to the commit- tee by the Washington State Department of Transportation suggests that 50 workers have full-time safety responsibility from a total of 181 workers who contribute to safety, or about 28 percent. Similar information from the Michigan Department of Transportation suggests that 17 profes- sionals work full-time on safety from a workforce of 117 safety contrib- utors, or about 15 percent. Information from the Iowa and North Carolina Departments of Transportation indicates that 32 percent and 11 percent of safety contributors, respectively, are full-time safety professionals. While there is much variability from state to state, the numbers suggest 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 45 TABLE 3-2 State Department of Transportation Management and Professional Workforce Positions Number of Positions Average per State Administration, total 379 7 Secretary/chief administrative officer 52 1 Major division chief 275 5 Public information director 52 1 Legal, total 387 7 Legal director/general counsel 52 1 Right-of-way director 75 1 Staff attorney 260 5 Information technology, total 1,152 23 Information technology director 52 1 Programmer/analyst 1,100 22 Human resources, total 302 6 Human resources director 52 1 Training manager 70 1 Training specialist 180 4 Planning and environment, total 1,900 38 Manager 100 2 Environmental analyst 650 13 Archeologist/cultural analyst 250 5 Planners 900 18 Finance, total 377 7 Chief finance officer 52 1 Auditors/finance manager 325 6 Scientist specialist, total 375 7 Chemist 100 2 Biologist 150 3 Geologist 125 2 Engineering, total 4,019 79 Chief highway engineer 52 1 Safety director 52 1 Major division engineer 350 7 Bridge design engineer 100 2 District engineer 440 9 Maintenance lead engineer 525 10 Project engineer 2,500 49 Other occupations,a total >30,000 ∼600 a Examples are clerks, laboratory technicians, equipment operators, mechanics, maintenance work- ers, surveyors, toll collectors, appraisers, and information technology technicians. SOURCE: AASHTO 2004. 

46 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector that about 20 percent of the total state department of transportation safety workforce of 5,500 can be defined as full-time safety professionals, or about 1,100. The remaining 4,400 workers are best characterized as safety contributors. As noted earlier, many state departments of transportation do not have safety offices or divisions; safety personnel are spread among many units, including traffic engineering and operations. Hence, the accuracy of the above estimates is difficult to gauge, especially in comparison with other professions within state departments of transportation. For exam- ple, nearly all state departments of transportation have environmental divisions, most created during the past 30 years in response to federal and state legislation requiring environmental analyses and mitigations of highway construction projects, maintenance, and operations. The committee asked (via e-mail) the safety engineers from several state departments of transportation to estimate the number of environmen- tal experts on the staff of their organizations. In most cases, the numbers were derived quickly by counting the number of full-time professionals in environmental services units; for example, Montana reported 41, Ohio 54, Oregon 79, Missouri 26, Louisiana 19, and Maine 30. Interest- ingly, the same departments reported having far fewer full-time safety professionals—the total for the six states was 48, compared with 249 full- time environmental professionals. This differential may be the result of some safety professionals not being fully accounted for because they are spread among several offices and division within each department. How- ever, it may also reflect the fact that analyses and mitigations of environ- mental impacts of highways are explicit requirements of federal and state legislation, and they must be administered by environmental experts. Office of the GR By definition, the GR professional staff members are full-time safety pro- fessionals. A review of the online organizational charts and staff directo- ries of GRs’ offices in several states suggests that they are modestly staffed. Positions range from data and research analysts to program managers, trainers, grants officers, and communications specialists. A professional staff of five to 20 is the norm; for example, Iowa has five positions, North Carolina 10, Louisiana 15, Oregon 18, Nevada 11, Idaho 12, and Kansas 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 47 nine. California, the most populous state, has a comparatively large staff of 33. Assuming an average staff of 15 in each of the 52 GR offices sug- gests that there are about 800 GR full-time safety professionals nation- ally, which is the figure used here. DMVs Responsibilities of state motor vehicle administrations include driver licensing and driver improvement, vehicle titling and registration, vehi- cle inspection, and motor carrier regulation. Safety-related responsibil- ities require personnel capable of analyzing driver violation and crash data as well as mental and physical conditions that can affect safety per- formance. DMVs employ vehicle standards engineers, field inspectors, and hazardous materials specialists. They also employ workers who imple- ment the provisions of state laws relating to driver qualification, driver training, and vehicle safety. The organization of motor vehicle administration services varies from state to state, with some administered by state police, others residing in state departments of transportation, and others established as indepen- dent agencies. Consequently, estimating the number of safety profes- sionals in DMVs is complicated by the variety of organizational structures. On the basis of the available information, the committee estimates that state DMVs average about one dozen full-time safety professionals, which assumes two or three professional-level staff fulfilling each of the various safety-related functions listed above. This estimate results in a national total of 600 full-time road safety professionals in state DMVs. State Police and Highway Patrols Data from the U.S. Department of Justice indicate that there are about 56,000 full-time state police nationally (Table 3-3). Uniformed patrol officers, or troopers, make up at least two-thirds of the force in most states. Because they maintain regular patrols and respond to calls for service, these officers are critically important in the implementation of traffic safety measures. In the committee’s view, the state police who are more likely to be full- time road safety professionals include the command and line person- nel who plan, program, oversee, and carry out traffic law enforcement 

48 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector TABLE 3-3 Local and State Police Agencies and Full-Time Officers Number of Number of Full-Time Type of Agency Agencies Sworn Officers Total 796,518 Local police/sheriff 15,736 605,631 State police 49 56,348 Special jurisdiction and Texas constable 1,999 46,043 Federal (nonmilitary) 88,496 NOTE: Special jurisdiction category includes both state-level and local-level agencies. SOURCE: U.S. Department of Justice 2004. activities. These officers may include district commanders, patrol super- visors, and patrol officers who administer and implement traffic safety programs. Examples include officers in units devoted to investigating traffic crashes, analyzing safety data, preparing traffic court cases, and coordinating safety programs with other public agencies such as traffic courts, highway departments, and emergency medical services. Many state police agencies have specialized traffic service units and task forces that investigate accidents or focus on particular safety concerns such as DUI and commercial vehicle safety. Most top command personnel such as the chief, deputy chief, assistant chiefs, and bureau chiefs are road safety contributors because their decisions affect the level of resources available for traffic safety programs and services. One means of estimating the number of full-time and contributing road safety professionals in state police agencies nationally is to extrap- olate from estimates developed for a few state police agencies. In this regard, the Washington State Patrol (WSP) is a helpful example and data point. Four WSP bureaus administer programs that are relevant to traf- fic safety. The Field Operations Bureau has primary responsibility for traffic law enforcement. It consists of eight district offices and a com- mercial vehicle services division. The Management Services Bureau over- sees strategic planning and performance studies. The Technical Services Bureau provides data and statistical information on traffic crashes. The Forensic Laboratory Services Bureau provides statistics and analyses for DUI enforcement. In the committee’s view, the heads of these four bureaus (four assistant chiefs), as well as commanders of the eight district offices 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 49 and commercial vehicle services division, are full-time safety professionals. They total 13 from a uniformed WSP workforce of 871. The estimated number of road safety professionals in WSP is some- what higher than figures for several other state police agencies derived from contacts with these agencies. The North Carolina State Highway Patrol has an estimated nine full-time road safety professionals on a force of 1,400 officers. The Michigan State Police and the Iowa State Patrol have five and three full-time road safety professionals on workforces of 2,100 and 450, respectively. These figures should, but do not, include the heads of units with traffic safety responsibilities. Accordingly, the com- mittee believes that a reasonable approximation of the average number of full-time road safety professionals per state police agency is 15 officers, or about 800 nationally. With regard to safety contributors in the state police workforce, WSP has eight command personnel—a chief, a deputy chief, and six other bureau chiefs—who should be counted. The agency also has 89 super- vising sergeants and 87 commercial vehicle safety officers on a total force of 871 officers. Thus, about one in five (184/871) of the agency’s officers can be characterized as road safety contributors. Applying this ratio to the national total of 56,000 state police officers suggests that there are more than 10,000 road safety contributors among state police agencies, or an average of about 200 per state. Health Departments and Injury Prevention Programs State injury prevention programs, which are usually administered by public health departments, may have several staff who work part-time on road safety or one or two full-time road safety professionals. These staff may be shared or working closely with the staff of governor’s high- way safety representatives. The committee assumes that this workforce is fairly small, consisting of about 100 full-time safety professionals nationwide. State Totals The rough estimates above suggest that there are about 3,400 full-time safety professionals and 14,000 safety contributors in the workforces of state agencies (see the following table). 

50 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector Full-Time Safety Others in Workforce State Agency Professionals Contributing to Safety Departments of transportation 1,100 4,400 GR offices 800 — DMVs 600 Unknown State police agencies 800 10,000 Health departments (injury prevention programs) 100 — Total 3,400 14,400 Road Safety Professionals in Local and Regional Government In practice, local governments have a major role in road safety. There are more than 3,000 counties in the United States and many more munici- palities, towns, townships, villages, and other general-purpose local gov- ernments. Many of these entities maintain roads and operate police forces. Local governments regulate (e.g., set speed limits), operate, and maintain more than 75 percent of the nation’s highway mileage. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that there are more than 15,000 local police agencies that employ more than 600,000 officers (Table 3-3). County and municipal governments also administer most traffic courts and provide emergency medical services. They have other safety-related responsibilities such as school transportation and driver and pedestrian education programs. The planning, administration, and supervision of these programs require personnel trained in specific aspects of road safety. Some localities have appointed traffic safety coordinators respon- sible for working with local school boards, police, traffic courts, fire depart- ments, public works departments, and other public and private entities to connect safety activities and provide liaison with state agencies such as the state department of transportation and the governor’s highway safety office. Local Highway Departments Local highway agencies, typically road commissions or public works departments, vary widely in resources available to support safety per- sonnel. At one end of the spectrum, many large municipalities and counties can afford to employ highway design, construction, and traf- fic engineers who are trained in detecting and developing solutions to 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 51 hazardous conditions. These agencies may assign field engineers and technicians to survey and ensure the safe condition of road surfaces, signing, lighting, and traffic control devices. At the other end, small local governments may not even have the resources to employ a general highway engineer, much less a professional engineer who is tasked to work full-time on safety. As a point of reference, there are 15 full-time city and county traf- fic engineers and traffic safety specialists in Michigan and 10 in Iowa. Larger states with many more local jurisdictions and large cities, such as California and Texas, will have more local road safety personnel, and less populous states will have fewer. If Michigan’s 15 local road safety professionals is assumed to be roughly indicative of circum- stances in most states, then there are about 800 local safety professionals nationally. Local Police For most local police agencies traffic law enforcement is a primary respon- sibility. Larger police departments may have specialized traffic units with uniformed and civilian personnel trained in analyzing traffic records, recognizing and testing for impaired drivers, investigating crashes, plan- ning surveillance programs, inspecting motor carriers, and administering public safety education programs (such as programs to promote pedes- trian safety and the use of vehicle child restraints). Smaller police forces will have less specialization. Estimating the number of local police officials who spend the majority of their time on traffic safety is complicated because of variability in agency size and organizational structure. For example, of the 285 local law enforce- ment agencies in the state of Washington, 90 percent employ 10 or fewer officers (nationally this figure is 95 percent). It is reasonable to assume that few, if any, of such agencies can afford to employ a police officer dedicated to road safety on a full-time basis. On the other hand, of the remaining 29 larger county and municipal police departments in the state, many are likely to have special traffic units that dedicate one or more officers to safety. Nationally, about 50 local police agencies employ more than 1,000 officers, 150 employ 250 to 999, 400 employ 100 to 250, and 800 employ 

52 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector 50 to 99 (Hickman and Reaves 2003). The remaining local police agen- cies, numbering more than 14,000, have fewer than 50 officers. The largest 50 police agencies, which are comparable with state police agen- cies in size, are each assumed to have 15 full-time safety professionals (comparable with the number in state police agencies). The 150 large agen- cies with 250 to 999 officers are assumed to average one-third as many safety professionals (that is, to have five). The 400 medium-size agencies with 100 to 249 officers are assumed to average one-fifth as many (that is, to have three). Each small agency with 50 to 99 officers is assumed to have one full-time safety professional. None of the smallest agencies with fewer than 50 officers is assumed to have a full-time road safety profes- sional on staff. The resulting estimate of 3,500 road safety professionals in local police agencies, based on these assumptions, is calculated in Table 3-4. Metropolitan and Regional Planning Agencies There are 392 MPOs in the United States, covering all urbanized areas. The workforces for MPOs serving the largest metropolitan areas can range in size from three or four dozen to more than 200. For example, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which has transportation planning (and some operational) responsibilities for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, has about 175 employees. The Puget Sound Regional Council, which serves the Seattle and Tacoma urban areas of Washington State, has a staff of 95. The Northeast Ohio Areawide Coor- dinating Agency, which serves the Cleveland area, has a staff of 50. TABLE 3-4 Estimates of Full-Time Road Safety Professionals in Local Highway and Police Agencies Full-Time Road Safety Professionals Local highway agencies, total 800 Local police agencies, total 3,500 Largest 50 750 Large 750 Medium 1,200 Small 800 Smallest 0 Grand total 4,300 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 53 Outside the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, MPO staffs are much smaller, typically consisting of one to two dozen employees. For example, the Southeast Council of Governments, serving the region of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, has a staff of 11. The Chattanooga–Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency in Tennessee has a workforce of seven. The Michiana Area Council of Governments for the South Bend area of Indiana has a staff of 20. Few, if any, MPOs serving small and medium-size metropolitan com- munities are likely to have a full-time road safety professional on staff. Furthermore, it is questionable whether even a majority of the largest 50 MPOs have full-time safety professionals on their planning staffs. For example, the Puget Sound Regional Council has one planner who works less than full-time on safety. An examination of the online organizational charts and staff rosters of several large MPOs did not reveal any positions with safety-related titles (such as safety planner). Researchers working on NCHRP Project 8-44 on transportation safety planning have surveyed MPOs and asked them to rate safety-related plan- ning relative to planning goals in seven other areas such as transit service, land use, air quality, elderly mobility, and capacity (Chang and Washing- ton, unpublished paper). The researchers report that safety planning ranked fifth in importance. Of the 119 MPOs responding to the survey, 84 percent reported having no state or local laws requiring express con- sideration of safety effects during the development of transportation plans. The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users made safety planning mandatory for state depart- ments of transportation and MPOs, which should elevate safety among MPO planning priorities. However, at this early stage probably no more than 100 full-time safety professionals are employed among the nation’s 392 MPOs. Totals Across All Levels of Government Even though most of the estimates above are inferred from limited data and on the basis of multiple assumptions, they provide a general sense of the scale of the road safety workforce in the public sector. They also reveal the wide scope of the workforce and how it transcends multiple organizations, disciplines, and occupations. 

54 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector The size of the workforce, in terms of full-time road safety profes- sionals, is modest—likely less than 10,000 workers nationally at all levels of government (see the table below). Estimated Number of Road Safety Professionals Federal 1,000 State 3,400 Local 4,300 Total 8,700 Inclusion of all workers who contribute to road safety could lead to an estimate of the workforce five to 10 times larger than that given above. The committee believes that this number could exceed 100,000 workers, given the many public agencies that have road safety responsibilities. In any event, the committee does not accept the idea that the road safety workforce con- sists only of a relatively small cadre of workers with “safety” in their titles and job descriptions. It is well within reason to include the managers and decision makers of these public agencies as well as the line and field per- sonnel who perform specific tasks that affect safety. They are important contributors to safety and thus part of the road safety workforce. SUMMARY Fifty years ago, relatively few individuals in public safety, health, or trans- portation agencies had a job title or job description emphasizing road safety. Today, the mission statements of most or all such agencies give safety a prominent place. Indeed, a number of agencies and offices at the federal, state, and local levels are dedicated to road safety, such as NHTSA, FMCSA, and the governor’s highway safety representative in all states. These agencies employ hundreds of individuals with explicit road safety responsibilities. However, a closer examination of the organizational charts of the many other public agencies with safety responsibilities indicates that the agency’s safety function is not always apparent in the descriptions and composition of the workforces. Personnel dedicated to safety full-time are often outnumbered by workers specializing in areas such as envi- ronmental planning, traffic operations, highway design, and criminal 

The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector 55 investigations. In most cases, there is no central organizational focus for road safety personnel. Estimates in this chapter suggest that there are roughly 10,000 full-time road safety professionals in federal, state, and local government. They consist of experts from a wide range of disci- plines. A much larger workforce—perhaps five to 10 times as large— contributes to road safety on a regular basis, even though many of these workers may not view their jobs as safety related. Full-time road safety professionals require broad safety knowledge and training. The kinds of knowledge and skills required and how full- time safety professionals obtain safety training and education are con- sidered in the next chapter. Consideration is also given to the safety-related knowledge and training needs of the many other workers who contribute to road safety. Although they are not full-time road safety professionals, their collective impact on road safety may be many times greater than that of the road safety professionals. REFERENCES Abbreviations AASHTO American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials USDOT U.S. Department of Transportation AASHTO. 2004. 2004 AASHTO Salary Survey. Washington, D.C. Bishop, R. W., M. E. Dennis, K. Johansen, and J. Weaver. 1971. Manpower Development in Highway Safety. Highway Users Federation for Safety and Mobility, Washington, D.C. Bishop, R., and G. Sheehe. 1968. The Role of the Community College in Developing Traffic Specialists and Technicians. Association of Junior Colleges, Washington, D.C. Booz, Allen, and Hamilton. 1968. Safety Specialist Manpower, Vols. I–IV. National Highway Safety Bureau, Washington, D.C. De Silva, H. S. 1942. Why We Have Automobile Accidents. John Wiley and Sons, New York. Hickman, M. J., and B. A. Reaves. 2003. Local Police Departments 2000. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ bjs/pub/pdf/lpd00.pdf. National Association of Counties Research Foundation. 1970. Community Action Program for Traffic Safety. Guides I-IX. U.S. Department of Transportation, Sept. Smith, R. D. 1969. Police Traffic Responsibilities: Manpower Requirements, Allocations, and Distribution. International Association of Chiefs of Police, Washington, D.C., July. 

56 Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector Traffic Education and Training Conference. 1972. Highway Safety Manpower and Training. National Safety Council. U.S. Department of Justice. 2004. Law Enforcement and Administrative Statistics 2000. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, D.C. USDOT. 2006. USDOT Workforce Plan 2003–2008, FY 2006 Update. Washington, D.C., March.