GOHS Grantees Best Practices: Taking the Steps for Success

The mission of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety in Georgia is to educate the public on traffic safety and to facilitate the implementation of programs that reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities on Georgia's roadways. A main component of fulfilling the GOHS mission involves empowering community and independent traffic safety organizations with guidance and support with project funding.

While there are certain criteria that all GOHS grantees must follow, there is by no means an absolute method for creating and maintaining a traffic safety program. Different organizations have different problems and goals. As a result, each GOHS grantee experiences a unique and individual journey in providing a highway safety service.

While each grantee's situation may be different, we believe that much can be learned from the experiences and successes of others. Ultimately, best practices can serve as a road map for highway safety groups in a way that prevents one from "reinventing the wheel" when attempting to complete desired or similiar tasks.

As such, GOHS has decided to create a place on the web with information regarding best practices for highway safety grantees. Starting with some pre-existing links on highway safety best practices, GOHS hopes to add more links as well as a place for suggestions specific to Georgia grantees on this page. If you have link suggestions, general experiences you would like to share, questions, or anything else that you believe would help you and your fellow highway safety grantees, we would like to hear about it. Send your suggestions to Amy Edwards at aedwards@gohs.ga.gov.We look forward to hearing from you!!

2009 Countermeasures That Work: A Highway Safety Countermeasure Guide for State Highway Safety Offices


http://www.gahighwaysafety.org/docs/safetycountermeasureguide2009.pdf

This guide is a basic reference to assist State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) in selecting effective, science-based traffic safety countermeasures for major highway safety problem areas. The guide: Bulletsdescribes major strategies and countermeasures that are relevant to SHSOs; summarizes their use, effectiveness, costs, and implementation time; and provides references to the most important research summaries and individual studies.

Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety Pre-Grant Application Training Workshop from 2008
http://www.gahighwaysafety.org/docs/pregrantapplicationtraining2008.ppt
Dr. Carol Cotton, Director of the Traffic Research and Evaluation Group at the University of Georgia has created a power point presentation which will help GOHS grant applicants how to write a grant that helps to show the effectiveness of a highway safety program, how to implement programs that are relevant for local communities, and how to best be innovative in presenting and creating highway safety programs.

Occupant Protection For Children Best Practices Manual for 2008
http://www.ghsa.org/html/publications/OPC/index.html
Across the country, highway safety officials and child safety advocates are working to to reduce injuries and save children’s lives by improving occupant protection for children. However, they are often challenged by competing issues and limited resources. To meet this challenge, State Farm Insurance Company® has teamed with GHSA (Governor's Highway Safety Association)to develop this Best Practices Manual. The Manual provides comprehensive guidelines, an assessment tool and “real world” projects that exemplify one or more of the essential ingredients to program success: commitment, creativity, communication and cooperation.

Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide)
http://www.thecommunityguide.org/mvoi/default.htm
The Community Guide is being developed by the nonfederal Task Force on Community Preventive Services (Task Force), appointed by the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This group was convened in 1996 by the Department of Health and Human Services to provide leadership in the evaluation of community, population, and healthcare system strategies to address a variety of public health and health promotion topics such as physical activity. The Task Force is supported by staff from CDC and by a variety of public and private partners. Although convened by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Task Force is an independent decision-making body.

NHTSA's Traffic Safety Digest
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/outreach/safedige/
A quarterly publication of innovative state and community traffic safety projects from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

NHTSA's Traffic Tech Page
FOR NHTSA'S COLLECTION OF TRAFFIC TECH
ARTICLES DATING BACK TO 1995 CLICK HERE
More scientific than the Traffic Safety Digest articles, articles from the Traffic Tech page can help grantees shape the local program proposal.

NHTSA General Search for Best Practices
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov
A NHTSA search for Best Practices will turn up a large number of sources on the site which may be helpful.

HARBORVIEW INJURY PREVENTION AND RESEARCH CENTER
As a premier research institution, HIPRC investigators have published over 750 articles in peer-reviewed journals, books, and other publications in the field of injury prevention research.

IIHS STUDY...LOW MANPOWER CHECKPOINTS: CAN THEY PROVIDE EFFECTIVE DUI ENFORCEMENT IN SMALL COMMUNITIES
Prepared by John Lacey of PIRE, Sue Ferguson on IIHS and others, this study makes a strong case for using Low Staffing Checkpoints, based on the experience of West Virginia.

VIEW FIFTY INTERESTING WAYS TO PROMOTE TRAFFIC SAFETY AS TAKEN FROM SUBMISSIONS TO THE IACP LAW ENFORCEMENT CHALLENGE (in pdf format)

NHTSA'S COUNTERMEASURES THAT WORK--This guide is a basic reference to assist State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) in selecting effective, science-based traffic safety countermeasures for major highway safety problem areas.

FHWA Report: "How to Develop a Pedestrian Safety Action Plan http://www.walkinginfo.org

Bicycling Policy and Planning 
http://www.bicyclinginfo.org

MORE AVAILABLE AS PROVIDED. HELP YOUR FELLOW GRANTEES IMPROVE UPON THEIR PRACTICES. THEIR SUCCESS WILL BE REFLECTED IN THE SUCCESS OF HIGHWAY SAFETY ACROSS GEORGIA!!