Skip to main content

Currently Skimming:

3 The Road Safety Workforce in the Public Sector
Pages 35-56

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 35...
... 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.
From page 36...
... As discussed in the previous chapter, the Highway Safety Act of 1966 and other federal legislation created new government agencies and programs 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 implementation of statewide road safety programs.
From page 37...
... Likewise, growing public concern 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 orientation of road safety programs.
From page 38...
... To encourage the use of occupant restraints, state governments 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.
From page 39...
... 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 thousands 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.
From page 40...
... 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 difficult to maintain.
From page 41...
... On the basis that about one-third of NHTSA's workforce provides administrative, information 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)
From page 42...
... 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.
From page 43...
... 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 governor's highway safety representatives (GRs) , departments of motor vehicles (DMVs)
From page 44...
... 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
From page 45...
... 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.
From page 46...
... However, it may also reflect the fact that analyses and mitigations of environmental 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 professionals.
From page 47...
... Assuming an average staff of 15 in each of the 52 GR offices suggests that there are about 800 GR full-time safety professionals nationally, which is the figure used here. DMVs Responsibilities of state motor vehicle administrations include driver licensing and driver improvement, vehicle titling and registration, vehicle inspection, and motor carrier regulation.
From page 48...
... 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 extrapolate from estimates developed for a few state police agencies.
From page 49...
... Accordingly, the committee 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.
From page 50...
... Some localities have appointed traffic safety coordinators responsible for working with local school boards, police, traffic courts, fire departments, 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 personnel.
From page 51...
... 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 circumstances in most states, then there are about 800 local safety professionals nationally.
From page 52...
... 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
From page 53...
... 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.
From page 54...
... . 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.
From page 55...
... 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.
From page 56...
... 1972. Highway Safety Manpower and Training.


This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More information on Chapter Skim is available.