On behalf of the Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) Communications Coordinating Council (CCC), the Louisiana Center for Transportation Safety (LCTS) spearheaded the development of a poster titled “Louisiana’s 4E Regional Approach to Saving Lives: The Goal Is Destination Zero Deaths” which was presented at the Poster Dash! 60 Minutes That Will Change Your Life” session of the Lifesavers Conference held last April 3-5, 2016 in Long Beach, California.
Louisiana is paving the way in traffic safety with Destination Zero Deaths (DZD), a multidisciplinary initiative to reduce motor vehicle-related fatalities and serious injuries. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), Louisiana Highway Safety Commission (LHSC) and Louisiana State Police (LSP) came together to address the state’s top four emphasis areas: occupant protection, impaired driving, crashes involving young drivers, and infrastructure & operations. In order to mobilize efforts at the local level, the state uses a regional 4E approach (engineering, enforcement, education and emergency medical services) where parish and city stakeholder participation is key. Hence, the Louisiana Department of Transportation & Development (DOTD) partnered with the Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) to establish nine regional coalitions across the state. Each coalition is comprised of local experts and advocates working collaboratively to develop and implement regional action plans based off of the SHSP. This bottom-up approach has proven to be highly effective. In fact, one coalition saw a crash reduction by 17% in 3 years, which the rest of the coalitions are working hard to achieve as well.
