South Plains Association of Governments

Comprehensive Safety Action Plan

About the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (CSAP)

The U.S.DOT Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) discretionary grant program provides federal funding to help communities improve roadway safety. The CSAP is the basic building block of the SS4A program. It establishes a data-driven framework to eliminate serious and fatal injuries for all road users, supports the revision and adoption of policies and procedures, and prioritizes and guides decision-making on projects and strategies to allocate resources and funding. By developing a CSAP, SPAG’s member counties and cities become eligible to pursue future federal funding through SS4A and other sources for project implementation.

How will the CSAP Benefit SPAG’s Member Counties and Cities ?

In addition to SS4A funding, the safety strategies and actions identified in the CSAP process can inform candidate projects for other federal funding programs such as RAISE and PROTECT and state-administered programs such as the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) and Transportation Alternatives.

The CSAP will yield a wealth of information that can help counties and cities make targeted investments in affordable, high-impact countermeasures. CSAP strategies and actions executed by cities and counties will improve safety outcomes while being efficient with taxpayer dollars.

What Types of Improvements are Included in the CSAP?

  • Revising road designs

  • Recommending policy changes

  • Improving traffic enforcement

  • Enhancing educational programs and supporting the development of safety culture in the region

  • Infrastructure improvements to address equitable investment in historically underserved communities

What Proven Safety Countermeasures Might be Included in the CSAP ?

Visit FHWA’s website for a complete list of potential proven safety countermeasures that can be incorporated into SPAG’s CSAP.

CSAP Components

  • Leadership commitment & goal setting

  • Planning structure (Steering committee)

  • Safety analysis

  • Engagement and collaboration (workshops)

  • Equity considerations (identify how crashes may impact underserved communities)

  • Policy and process changes

  • Strategy and project selections

  • Progress and transparency

About the Safe System Approach

The USDOT’s SS4A grant program is guided by the Safe System Approach, which is a framework designed to create safer transportation systems and reduce fatal and serious injury crashes for all road users. The approach shifts how we think about safety by improving safety culture, increase collaboration across all safety stakeholders, and refocus transportation system design and operation on anticipating human mistakes and lessening impact forces to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries.

Principles of a Safe System Approach

  • A Safe System Approach prioritizes the elimination of crashes that result in death and serious injuries.Description text goes here

  • People will inevitably make mistakes and decisions that can lead or contribute to crashes, but the transportation system can be designed and operated to accommodate certain types and levels of human mistakes, and avoid death and serious injuries when a crash occurs.

  • Human bodies have physical limits for tolerating crash forces before death or serious injury occurs; therefore, it is critical to design and operate a transportation system that is human-centric and accommodates physical human vulnerabilities.

  • All stakeholders are vital to preventing fatalities and serious injuries on our roadways.

  • Proactive tools should be used to identify and address safety issues in the transportation system, rather than waiting for crashes to occur and reacting afterwards.

  • Reducing risks requires that all parts of the transportation system be strengthened, so that if one part fails, the other parts still protect people.