Strategic Highway Safety Plan

VERSION 6.0 — 2025

Executive Summary

The Utah Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) outlines a coordinated, comprehensive, and integrated plan to reduce serious injuries and fatalities, with the ultimate goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries on Utah’s roads.

The plan focuses on a series of key and continuing emphases that are data driven and designed to help Utah reach zero fatalities and serious injuries. The SHSP is used as a key element in the management and operation of programs, projects, and initiatives across multiple agencies. Each stakeholder has developed their own individual strategies that center on the application of the principles and objectives of the SHSP. The leadership and executive committees across the state coordinate their plans with the elements of the SHSP to ensure a collaborative force that integrates improved safety into all plans. This Strategic Highway Safety Plan website is intended to coordinate safety efforts for the next 5 years, beginning in 2025.

In addition to coordination that takes place across all stakeholders’ plans, the Utah Department of Public Safety (DPS) and the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) take the lead on assembling empirical crash data and systemic systemic crash models. This data and the analysis of this data provides locations of all crashes and injuries to all users, identifies high-risk rural roads and at-grade rail crossings, supplies prioritization of limited resources, and the cost-effectiveness of safety improvements. DPS and UDOT are constantly improving how this data is disseminated and consumed across all agencies for all stakeholders.

Utah’s goal of zero fatalities supports larger nationwide and global goals and initiatives including the National Roadway Safety Strategy that incorporates the Safe Systems Approach, Toward Zero Deaths, Vision Zero and other efforts. Building on the national Safe Systems Approach, Utah has an emphasis on five key areas - Engineering, Enforcement, Education, Emergency Medical Services, and Everyone. Below is a description of the national Safe Systems Approach, Utah’s Five E’s, and how the Utah SHSP integrates these two seamlessly.

In the other pages of this site are the descriptions of the actions that address the emphasis and continuing safety areas across all agencies and stakeholders. Those areas where there is the greatest potential to reduce fatality and serious injuries form the emphasis areas. These tend to have higher fatality and serious injury crashes than continuing safety areas. In addition to the emphasis and continuing safety areas included, a Vulnerable Road Users (VRU) Assessment was completed in 2025 to identify trends, and actionable strategies to improve the safety of pedestrians, bicyclists, and micromobility users across the state. Those actions are reflected throughout the SHSP.

Safe System Approach

What Is a Safe System Approach?

The Safe System approach is a paradigm shift to improve safety culture, increase collaboration across all safety stakeholders, and refocus transportation system design and operation on anticipating human mistakes and lessening impact forces to reduce crash severity and save lives. Applying the Safe System approach involves anticipating human mistakes by designing and managing road infrastructure to keep the risk of a mistake low; and when a mistake leads to a crash, the impact on the human body doesn’t result in a fatality or serious injury.

There are six principles that form the basis of the Safe System approach: deaths and serious injuries are unacceptable, humans make mistakes, humans are vulnerable, responsibility is shared, safety is proactive, and redundancy is crucial.

Making a commitment to zero traffic deaths means addressing all aspects of safety through five Safe System elements that, together, create a holistic approach with layers of protection for road users: safe road users, safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, and post-crash care.

The Safe System approach requires a supporting safety culture that places safety first and foremost in road system investment decisions. To achieve our zero deaths vision, everyone must accept that fatalities and serious injuries are unacceptable and preventable.

Five E's

Building on the national initiative of a Safe System Approach, Utah has an emphasis on four key areas - engineering, education, enforcement, and emergency response. Each area has a unique, yet strongly interconnected role to improve safety. That strong connection lies at the core of the fifth E: everyone. Below are the descriptions of Utah's emphasis areas, the national Safe Systems Approach, and the Utah Safe System Approach.

Engineering

Engineering is proactively designing safety into the infrastructure to minimize crash severity and prevent fatalities. Engineering solutions focus on removing high-risk situations, reducing vehicle speeds, managing user conflicts and comfort, and increasing attentiveness and awareness. This approach aligns with the goal of reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries to zero by making safer behaviors the most comfortable and intuitive choices for users. Transportation professionals continue to improve safety by combining tried practices and innovative approaches.

Education

Education plays a key role in fostering a supportive safety culture where behavior is improved at all levels. Effective education involves understanding and addressing the challenges and needs of all users, including improving the culture of the organizations that implement, enforce, and respond to safety. The key aspects of effective education include shifting culture and mindsets, complementing system design, fostering shared responsibility, raising risk awareness, and improving knowledge and skills.

Enforcement

State and local law enforcement play a vital role in implementing multiple aspects of the Safe System approach. They are critical to the prevention and reduction of traffic-related fatalities and injuries by engaging with the community, educating the public, and upholding laws to deter poor driving behavior. Focused enforcement remains critical to saving lives, preventing injuries, and reducing traffic crashes.

Emergency Response

When injuries occur as a result of motor vehicle crashes, the emergency medical services (EMS) system provides the best chance to reduce death and disability. The EMS system includes trained dispatchers that ensure the right resources arrive to provide care and address safety at the scene. First responders that include emergency medical personnel affiliated with fire, ambulance services, and public safety, provide seamless emergency health care. They ensure patients are triaged, treated, and transported to hospitals, who serve as the first receivers for definitive life saving care. Emergency response, along with Public Safety clear traffic incidents, reducing the risk of secondary crashes as a result of unexpected traffic conditions.

Everyone

The road to zero starts and ends with each individual. Our focus is improving our consistent, daily actions to improve safety in all situations. We are accountable to ourselves and each other. Everyone is the most important "E" in traffic safety.

The Safe System Approach in Utah

Safe Road Users: Address the safety of all road users. Improve responsible behaviors through education and equitable enforcement.
Safe Vehicles: Vehicles are designed, connected, and regulated to minimize the occurrence and severity of collisions using safety measures that incorporate the latest technology.
Safe Speeds: Reduce speeds to minimize crash risks and injury severity by reducing impact forces, providing additional time for drivers to react, improving visibility, and setting and enforcing speed limits.
Safe Roads: Design to prevent and accommodate human mistakes and improve injury tolerance. Implement designs that separate and accommodate all users, alert users to hazards and other users, and influence appropriate speeds.
Post-Crash Care: Improve the ability and response time of crash location, injury stabilization, and access to medical facilities to improve outcomes for crash victims. Analyze crash factors, incident management, and other processes to implement improvements.

While the Safe System approach represents a shift in strategy, it complements the proven foundation of the five E’s of safety—Engineering, Education, Enforcement, Emergency Response, and Everyone—that have long been essential in preventing crashes and fatalities. Improving communication across the spectrum of each of these elements lies at the center of our efforts. By integrating these pillars with the broader Safe System principles, we acknowledge the critical work of the past while embracing a more proactive and comprehensive path forward.

Implementing the Safe System approach in Utah is not just a strategy—it’s a commitment to protecting lives and ensuring that every journey is a safe one. By embracing this comprehensive and proactive model, we can make significant strides toward a future with zero traffic-related fatalities and serious injuries.