In this online engineering PDH course, the Safe System approach to traffic safety is presented. The goal of the approach is to reduce death and serious injuries through design that accommodates human mistakes and injury tolerances. The principles upon which Safe System is founded are 1) death/serious injury is unacceptable, 2) humans make mistakes, 3) humans are vulnerable, 4) responsibility is shared, 5) safety is proactive, and 6) redundancy is crucial. The elements used to implement the Safe System approach are safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speed, safe roads, and post-crash care. This course is based on the Federal Highway Administration slide deck, “The Safe System Approach Presentation,” last updated on January 6, 2023, This course is intended for civil and transportation engineers interested in increasing their knowledge about the Safe System approach to traffic safety.

Learning Objectives:

• Learning that the safety of all road users, including those who walk, cycle, drive, ride transit and travel by other modes, must be simultaneously addressed
• Understanding how reducing speeds can accommodate human injury through reducing impact forces, providing additional time for drivers to stop, and improving visibility
• Recognizing that safety measures incorporating the latest vehicle technology can decrease the occurrence and severity of collisions
• Realizing that post-crash care has many facets, including first responders, forensic analysis at the crash scene, and traffic incident management
• Learning that all stakeholders—for example, transportation users, managers, and vehicle manufacturers—share responsibility that crashes do not lead to fatal or serious injuries