Fall 2011: Volume 5 Issue 2 Safety Compass Newsletter • 1 

A Message from FHWA Associate 

Administrator for Safety, Tony Furst 

Improving safety on our Nation’s roadways is our 

number one priority and it’s a shared priority as 

clearly demonstrated by the applications we 

received for this year’s National Roadway Safety 

Awards. This biennial national awards program 

is the result of a long-standing partnership 

between the Federal Highway Administration 

and the Roadway Safety Foundation. It provides 

a national opportunity for our State, local, and 

agency colleagues to showcase and share their 

practices in roadway safety. 

The Federal Highway Administration and the Roadway Safety 

Foundation assembled a distinguished panel of roadway safety 

experts and advocates to review and judge this year’s 

submissions. The panel was very impressed with the outstanding 

quality of all the applications and the commitment to safety that 

the applications demonstrate. We genuinely appreciate the time 

and effort each applicant spent preparing the application, but more 

importantly, for the work to improve safety that the application 

represents. 

On November 15, the 2011 National Roadway Safety Awards 

were presented to the 11 winning applications. These awards are 

a formal recognition of the tremendous achievements our State, 

local, and agency colleagues have made in making our Nation’s 

roadways safer. Each of the 11 winning projects advances 

innovation, effectiveness, and efficient use of available resources 

and are showcased in the 2011 National Roadway Safety Awards 

Noteworthy Practices Guide, available at 

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadwaysafetyawards/npg_2011/. 

Congratulations to the 2011 National Roadway Safety Awards 

winners! 

A Publication of the Federal Highway Administration Safety Program Fall 2011 (special edition): Volume 5 Issue 3 

In This Issue: 

Using Micro Surfacing to Reduce 

Wet Weather Crash Rates ............. 2

Mississippi Cable Median Barrier 

Safety Initiative ............................... 3

Jones/Linn County Portland 

Cement Concrete Pavement 

Overlay with Safety EdgeSM ............. 3

Making Roadways Safe for 

Motorcyclists ................................. 3

Evaluation of Moveable Barriers in 

Construction Work Zones............... 4

Safety Patrol Partner-Sponsorship 4

California’s HSIP Application and 

Evaluation Tool for Local 

Roadways ...................................... 5

Smart Roadside Inspection 

Program ......................................... 5

Minnesota County Road Safety 

Plans .............................................. 5

Program Planning, Development, 

and Evaluation ............................... 6

FM 1960 Median Improvements 

Program ......................................... 6

Work Zone Safety Education 

Program ......................................... 6

Anthony T. Furst 

Acting Associate 

Administrator, 

Office of Safety 
Fall 2011 (special edition): Volume 5 Issue 3 Safety Compass Newsletter • 2 

2011 National Roadway Safety 

Awards Recognize Excellence in 

Safety Practices 

On November 15, 2011, the Federal Highway 

Administration (FHWA and the Roadway Safety 

Foundation (RSF) formally recognized nine 

exemplary highway projects and programs from 

across the country as winners of the biennial 

National Roadway Safety Awards. 

Now in its eleventh year, 

the joint program honors 

agencies and organizations 

in the transportation 

community that have made 

verifiable and significant 

strides toward improving 

the safety of our Nation’s highways through 

infrastructure improvements, operational 

improvements or program planning, development 

and evaluation. Every two years, this prestigious 

awards program examines the “best of the best” 

using effectiveness, innovation, and efficient use of 

resources as criteria for determining the winning 

projects. 

 “It is a privilege to formally recognize the localities 

and agencies that were selected for the 2011 

National Roadway Safety Awards,” said John 

Porcari, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of 

Transportation. “Each one of this year’s entries 

demonstrated a commitment to saving lives by 

improving our Nation’s roadways.” 

“The best and brightest safety professionals who 

plan, engineer, and implement innovative solutions 

rarely get public recognition or the opportunity to 

know whose lives they have saved. These awards 

are an opportunity to thank those who increase our 

odds of getting home safely each day,” said Gregg 

Cohen, Executive Director of the Roadway Safety 

Foundation. 

Each of the National Roadway Safety Award 

recipients was evaluated on innovation, effectiveness, and efficient use of resources. Project 

categories included infrastructure improvements; 

operational improvements; and program planning, 

development, and evaluation. 

John Porcari, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department 

of Transportation (far right) with the 2011 National 

Roadway Safety Awards recipients. 

For more information about these projects, please 

see the 2011 National Roadway Safety Awards 

Noteworthy Practices Guide, available at: 

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadwaysafetyawards/np

g_2011/. 

WINNERS: INFRASTRUCTURE IMPROVEMENTS CATEGORY 

Minnesota DOT District 3B and Office of 

Materials and Road Research 

Using Micro Surfacing to Reduce Wet Weather 

Crash Rates. Having identified a series of bridges 

and approaches that had a higher crash rate than 

the surrounding highway due to a combination of a 

quickly freezing roadway surface and the fact that 

the bridges were on super-elevated curves over a 

railway, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) decided to apply a micro 

surfacing treatment to combat what was clearly a 

potentially dangerous driving environment during 

wet or icy weather. In a follow up analysis, MnDOT 

examined crash data for the 10 years both before 

and after the application to determine the 

effectiveness of the micro surfacing in reducing wet 

weather crash rates. MnDOT found that during the 

20-year study period, wet-weather crashes 

decreased by 76 percent after applying micro 

surfacing. Total crashes during this time decreased 

by 19 percent, despite an overall traffic increase on 

the road of 65 percent. 
Fall 2011 (special edition): Volume 5 Issue 3 Safety Compass Newsletter • 3 

In looking at cost-effectiveness, MnDOT calculates 

that the resulting wet weather crash reduction has a 

payback ratio of 14:1 for every dollar spent when 

using a 5-year micro-surface reapplication 

schedule. If the time between reapplication is 

lengthened to 7 years, the payback ratio becomes 

19.7:1. 

Mississippi Department of Transportation 

Mississippi Cable Median Barrier Safety 

Initiative. In the early 2000s, the Mississippi 

Department of Transportation (MDOT) launched a 

cable median 

barrier safety 

initiative to 

reduce 

fatalities and 

crash severity 

on segments 

of I-55 in northern Mississippi with 

particularly high median-crossover crash rates. The 

immediate reduction in crash severity led the State 

to expand its program, installing cable median 

barriers on a 12-mile stretch of interstate with such 

a significant history of high crash rates that the 

barrier was struck more than 20 times before 

construction was even complete. Since completion, 

however, there have been zero cross-median 

fatalities, and the crash severity has been 

dramatically reduced. Building on this success, 

MDOT opted to install an additional 6 miles of cable 

median barrier at another location plagued by 

median crossover crashes, further reducing severe 

crashes and fatalities on the interstate system. 

The State saw such significant safety 

improvements that MDOT awarded more than $20 

million in cable median barrier contracts throughout 

the State in 2010, and another 150 miles of 

highway have been targeted for future cable-barrier 

implementation. Since the beginning of 2010, fully 

209 miles of cable median barriers have been 

installed on stretches of Mississippi roadway with 

high crash rates. As funding allows, MDOT plans to 

continue its program to install cable median barrier 

as appropriate on all interstates and accesscontrolled highways in the State. 

The Jones County (Iowa) Secondary Roads 

Department and the Linn County (Iowa) 

Secondary Roads Department – Joint Award 

Jones/Linn County Portland Cement Concrete 

Pavement Overlay with Safety EdgeSM. A study by 

Iowa State University found that a pavement edge 

drop-off may have been a contributing factor in 

approximately 18 percent of rural run-off-the-road 

crashes on paved roadways with unpaved 

shoulders in Iowa, and that pavement edge dropoff-related crashes were twice as likely to result in 

fatalities as other crash types on similar roadways. 

To combat this dangerous road safety issue, the 

county engineers of Jones and Linn Counties 

chose to incorporate the Safety EdgeSM on a 2.7 

mile stretch of a county highway that carries an 

average traffic volume of approximately 1,350 

AADT. The purpose of this project was twofold: first 

and most importantly, the counties hoped to 

improve the safety of a road segment that was on 

the list of Iowa's "High Risk Rural Roads" and 

second to evaluate the constructability, quality, and 

performance of the Safety EdgeSM. The project 

design included a 6-inch unbonded Portland 

cement concrete (PCC) overlay placed over an 

existing 6-inch PCC pavement. The overlay also 

included two 11-foot lanes with tied 2-foot 

shoulders plus a 

9-inch wide, 30-

degree sloped 

Safety EdgeSM 

in both 

eastbound and 

westbound 

directions. 

Crash reduction 

factors indicate 

that the use of the Safety EdgeSM has the potential 

to reduce crashes by 5.7 percent, making it a costeffective countermeasure. Further, the Safety 

EdgeSM can also improve pavement edge stability, 

which may increase pavement life. 

Florida Department of Transportation 

Making Roadways Safe for Motorcyclists.

Motorcycle safety continues to be a concern in 

Florida. In 2008, 532 motorcycle riders and their 

passengers were killed on Florida roadways, where 
Fall 2011 (special edition): Volume 5 Issue 3 Safety Compass Newsletter • 4 

motorcyclists account for 

only 6 percent of the 

motoring public but make 

up 17.8 percent of all 

fatalities. In 2009, however, 

those numbers dropped by 

13 percent—to 402 fatalities, just 15.7 percent of all 

roadway fatalities—due to 

FDOT’s outstanding efforts to create a motorcycle 

safety coalition, to develop a Motorcycle Strategic 

Safety Plan with 11 emphasis areas, and to create 

a plan that will track the initiative’s implementation 

and status. 

The motorcycle safety coalition grew out of a 

request by FDOT to the National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration to review the State’s 

motorcycle programs and advise the agency on 

ways to improve motorcycle safety. One of the 

significant achievements of the coalition to date 

was producing a 10-minute training DVD that calls 

attention to common road conditions that challenge 

motorcycle riders. The video shows how motorcycle 

riders react to different roadway conditions 

including grates, potholes, ridges, steel plates, 

pavement markings, grooved surfaces, loose 

gravel, lane changes, and drop-offs in work zones. 

The video also enables viewers to understand more 

clearly how a motorcycle rider reacts when 

encountering these various roadway conditions. 

FDOT hopes that the problems identified in the 

DVD will be useful in training sessions for 

engineers and engineering groups throughout 

Florida. 

WINNERS: OPERATIONAL IMPROVEMENTS CATEGORY 

Utah Department of Transportation 

Evaluation of Moveable Barriers in Construction 

Work Zones. When UDOT discovered that a State 

road project to reconstruct and widen a 1.7-mile 

arterial had severe safety problems with a work 

zone area that was confined, inefficient, and lacking 

in positive protection for workers, the agency 

decided to act. In response to the situation, UDOT 

decided to use a moveable barrier system that 

would essentially create a “reversible” lane. The 

moveable barrier system consists of one-meter 

sections of jersey wall modified to have a “T” top, 

creating a lifting surface for the transfer machine, 

also called a “zipper machine.” The barrier transfer 

machine lifts the barrier and passes it through an 

inverted conveyor system, laterally transferring the 

barrier from 4 to 18 feet in a single pass. For the 

Utah project, the machine moved the barrier 

multiple times daily based on peak traffic needs, 

but the transfer itself took only about 20 minutes to 

complete (including repositioning 

signage and traffic 

control devices). 

As one of the first 

applications in the 

country on a 

highly congested 

urban arterial, the 

moveable barrier 

positively separated workers and motorists; 

enabled a larger, more efficient work zone in the 

off-peak periods to help accelerate construction; 

and resulted in zero work zone encroachments by 

motorists into the work area. 

Travelers Marketing LLC 

Safety Patrol Sponsor-Partnership. This award 

was given to Travelers Marketing LLC, a private 

company which identified a highly effective 

transportation program with untapped sponsorship 

value and forged partnerships with companies 

whose business interests and corporate missions 

aligned with the programs’ safety objectives. 

Travelers Marketing’s role is to identify the 

sponsorship elements, assemble the private 

partners, lead them through the procurement 

process, and implement and manage the 

sponsorship program throughout the term of 

agreement. The first Safety Patrol SponsorPartnership was developed in Massachusetts in 

2002. Since then, six other States, including 

Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New York, 

Maryland and Kansas, have joined the program. 

These partnerships are built among State 

departments of transportation and toll road 

authorities, the private-sector, sponsor companies, 

and Travelers Marketing. 

Through this sponsorship program, what was 

previously a significant DOT expense now 

generates in excess of $30 million for participating 
Fall 2011 (special edition): Volume 5 Issue 3 Safety Compass Newsletter • 5 

States over the term of the current partnerships. 

These funds are typically reinvested into new safety 

patrol vehicles, equipment, and drivers. 

Sponsorship revenues often enable States to 

sustain or expand safety patrol programs when 

they otherwise would not be able to do so. 

WINNERS: PROGRAM PLANNING, 

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION 

CATEGORY 

California Department of Transportation 

(Caltrans) 

California’s HSIP Application and Evaluation 

Tool for Local Roadways. Due to the sheer size 

of the State, local roadway safety improvement 

projects in California must be identified and scoped 

by the more than 600 individual local agencies that 

are eligible for Federal Highway Safety 

Improvement Program (HSIP) funding. Because 

these agencies’ safety evaluation processes and 

staffing range from being well-established and fully 

staffed to having no evaluation capabilities and 

being unstaffed by safety professionals, Caltrans 

took the opportunity to advance its long-term goal 

of improving local road safety by creating a tool that 

would assist local agencies to select projects with 

the maximum safety benefit by making the local 

roadway HSIP entirely data driven. 

To do this, Caltrans' Division of Local Assistance 

(DLA) staff went into partnership with the University 

of California Berkeley's Safe Transportation 

Research and Education Center and with members 

of California's Strategic Highway Safety Planning 

team. The result is a user-friendly HSIP Tool that 

works within the context of the State's not always 

reliable local roadway safety data to make fair and 

consistent project selections that follow Federal 

guidelines for proven safety countermeasures. The 

tool also encourages local agencies to emphasize 

roadway safety through network analysis and lowcost safety projects. 

New Mexico Department of Public Safety-Motor 

Transportation Police Division 

Smart Roadside Inspection Program. The 

challenge for Commercial Vehicle Enforcement 

(CVE) has been keeping up with the growth in 

commercial vehicles. There are more than 12 

million registered commercial vehicles in North 

America today, and the number is growing. 

Traditional inspection is limited by a fixed number 

of CVE inspectors screening "unsafe looking" or 

randomly selected trucks. But New Mexico's Smart 

Roadside Inspection System Program is an 

electronic screening system that is based on 

objective testing criteria, which helps level the 

playing field. In addition, multiple roadside sensors 

allow automated data collection from passing 

vehicles without creating transportation slow-downs 

or stoppages. 

When the sensors identify a high-risk vehicle, it is 

checked against safety and security databases for 

alert flags for enforcement operations. Because this 

is done automatically, the Smart Roadside 

Inspection 

Program allows 

CVE personnel 

to focus their 

resources more 

efficiently and 

effectively on 

trucks that pose 

the most risk to 

transportation 

safety and 

security without interfering with the flow of 

commerce. The system also rewards responsible 

carriers with free-flowing travel and motivates those 

who do not maintain or insure their fleets to comply 

with the law more closely. 

Minnesota Department of Transportation and 

Wright County Highway Department – Joint 

Award 

Minnesota County Road Safety Plans. 

Minnesota's 2007 Strategic Highway Safety Plan 

noted more than half of the State's traffic fatalities 

occurred on local roads, but MnDOT realized that 

meeting the statewide Toward Zero Deaths goal 

would not be possible without reducing crashes on 

those systems. County highway departments in 

Minnesota, however, do not generally have 

experience with carrying out system-wide crash 

analyses or linking crash causes with mitigation 

strategies at specific locations. 

In response, MnDOT initiated the County Road 

Safety Plans (CRSP) Program to engage local 
Fall 2011 (special edition): Volume 5 Issue 3 Safety Compass Newsletter • 6 

highway agencies in the safety planning process 

more fully and to provide these agencies with the 

technical assistance needed to apply for State and 

Federal funding successfully. The CRSP process 

includes a crash analysis and system-wide risk 

assessment of road and traffic characteristics for 

each county. This process results in the 

identification of low-cost, infrastructure-based 

safety projects for specific at-risk locations on 

county roads. MnDOT then works with county 

engineers to prioritize projects and familiarize them 

with the safety project development and the 

Highway Safety Improvement Program solicitation 

processes. The first set of 20 county road safety 

plans completed identified $70 million worth of 

projects equating to $3.5 million per county. About 

90 percent of these projects focused on roadway 

departure crashes. 

Wright County Highway Department and 

Minnesota Department of Transportation 

(MNDOT) 

Program Planning, Development, and 

Evaluation. Wright County Minnesota is one of the 

fastest growing counties in the Nation and is 

responsible for 520 miles of highways. Because 

safety is a top priority for the Wright County 

Highway Department, the agency initiated a 

number of safety programs and strategies in order 

to minimize injuries and fatalities, particularly those 

resulting from roadway departure crashes and 

intersection crashes. Wright County has initiated 

several projects to combat this problem, including 

improved pavement markings and signage and ITS 

technologies such as intersection warning systems, 

a curve warning system, and driver feedback speed 

limit signs. These engineering safety improvement 

projects have contributed to a 34 percent reduction 

of fatal and serious injury crashes since 1997. 

Public awareness also has improved the 

effectiveness of Wright County's safety programs. 

Wright County has proactively engaged the local 

media and has been an active participant in the 

statewide Toward Zero Deaths Program Team and 

other safety organizations. As a result, a positive 

change in the safety culture has been created in 

Wright County. 

HONORABLE MENTION 

Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT)– 

FM 1960 Median Improvements Program. FM 

1960, the primary east-west thoroughfare in Harris 

County, TX, has a daily traffic count of 

approximately 65,000 vehicles, 50 cross streets, 36 

signals, and a driveway density as high as 49 

driveways per mile in a mixed-use area that 

includes commercial, retail, and residential 

developments and a high population density. Only 

two sections along the entire 8-mile corridor had 

raised medians. A 3-year study documented 2,171 

crashes on the corridor, some 217 percent higher 

than the statewide average. Between 1998 and 

2000 there were a total of 2,316 total crashes, with 

42 percent occurring at intersections and 58 

percent at driveways. On the 2 existing sections of 

roadway containing raised medians, however, there 

were only 123 

crashes per mile – 

17 percent fewer 

crashes than on 

those sections with 

a continuous center 

left-turn lane. 

In response, TxDOT 

initiated the FM 1960 Median Improvements Project 

to improve mobility and safety along approximately 

8 miles of FM 1960. The project included 

construction of raised-curb medians, channelized 

left-turn bays, signal improvements, and striping. 

Although it is too early to have sufficient crash data 

to assess the results, modeling data in the FM 1960 

Access Management Study indicates the 

improvements will reduce travel time by an average 

of 16 percent, delays by an average of 40 percent, 

and the number of stops by 45 percent. 

New Jersey Local Technical Assistance 

Program (NJ LTAP) – Work Zone Safety 

Education Program. Developed, maintained, and 

led by the NJ LTAP at Rutgers Center for 

Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation, the 

Work Zone Safety Education Program has a 20 

year history of providing a multi-level, interactive, 

and state-certified collection of educational training 

courses. For the past 12 years, the program also 
Fall 2011 (special edition): Volume 5 Issue 3 Safety Compass Newsletter • 7 

has included a major 

statewide annual 

conference for State 

transportation agency 

officials, law enforcement, 

highway construction 

managers, work zone 

personnel, engineers, and 

highway contractors to help reduce work zonerelated injuries and fatalities. The annual 

conference and training sessions are updated 

based on practitioner feedback to provide up-todate educational materials to incoming students. 

Because of this, the Work Zone Education Program 

does not simply develop and offer training, it serves 

as a "watchdog” for work zone-related issues and 

continually advances the program in an effort to 

increase safety in and around work zone areas. 

As the only work zone curriculum recognized by the 

New Jersey DOT (NJDOT), the program offers 

specified instruction on an annual basis to more 

than 1,000 work zone safety professionals at 

convenient locations statewide with little or no cost 

to the attendee. To a degree, New Jersey credits 

the increased availability of training through the 

program to a 50 percent decrease in work zone 

worker fatalities since 2007, despite a concurrent 

increase in highway construction projects. 

Safety Compass Newsletter 

A publication of the U.S. 

Department of Transportation, 

Federal Highway Administration 

The Safety Compass newsletter is 

published for Internet distribution 

three times a year by the: 

FHWA Office of Safety 

1200 New Jersey Ave. SE, 

Room E71-105 

Washington, DC 20590 

The Safety Compass can also be viewed at http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov. 

Editor-in-Chief 

Karen Timpone 

karen.timpone@dot.gov

Your comments and highway safety related articles are welcomed. This 

newsletter is intended to increase highway safety awareness and information and 

to provide resources to help save lives. 

You are encouraged to submit highway safety articles that might be of value to the 

highway safety community. Send your comments, questions and articles for 

review electronically to Karen Timpone, karen.timpone@dot.gov.