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Safety Publications

Strategic Highway Safety Plan

The Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) brings together many safety stakeholders that include various state agencies, law enforcement agencies, the Maine Turnpike Authority, AAA, and the Maine Motor Transport Association. Together they attempt to address Maine's safety concerns in a coordinated way and maximize effectiveness and efficiency in achieving the improvements in target areas. There are strategic focus areas identified that include lane departure, and mature drivers. Strategies are developed to bring about safety improvement that consider engineering, enforcement, education/public outreach, and emergency services aspects. These are the four E's of transportation safety strategy.

Safety Partnerships

MaineDOT’s Safety Office is actively involved with many statewide safety-related agencies and organizations that closely align with MaineDOT's safety objectives. Here are just a few:

  • Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) brings together many state agencies pursuing traffic safety interests plus other safety advocates. Their goals are to address Maine’s leading traffic safety concerns in a coordinated way and to maximize effectiveness and efficiency in achieving improvements in target areas. The SHSP was first launched in 2005 and has since undergone a major update. There are safety priorities that include safety belts, lane departure, speed, younger drivers, mature drivers and alcohol. Champions that head up each strategy represent a wide range of transportation safety stakeholders from a variety of public and private organizations. Strategies to bring about safety improvement include engineering, enforcement, education/public outreach, and emergency services. These are the four E's of transportation safety strategy.
  • The Maine Transportation Safety Coalition (MTSC) began first as a MaineDOT effort to collaborate with others in promoting safety initiatives throughout the state. MaineDOT recognized that in order to implement the "four E's", it would need to identify and partner with other state agencies and others that have a vested interest in transportation safety. The MTSC has members from a wide spectrum of organizations who all have the common goal of reducing injuries and saving the lives of people traveling in Maine.
  • Traffic Records Coordinating Committee: This statewide stakeholder group was created to facilitate the planning, coordination and implementation of projects to improve the state’s traffic records system. The TRCC is a partnership of transportation, law enforcement, criminal justice, emergency medical services and motor vehicle bureau representatives. This traffic records coalition fosters communication and understanding among stakeholders to formulate mutually beneficial projects for improving the accessibility, timeliness, accuracy, integration, uniformity and completeness of statewide traffic-related information
  • Large Animal Crash Study Group: This multi-agency group evaluates the latest issues and possible crash mitigation strategies to reduce crashes with large animals, especially moose and deer. Maine experiences about 600 moose crashes and 3,000 deer crashes annually. This group has also produced safety outreach materials including crash map/safety tip posters and brochures.

Data, Publications, and Resources

There is a lot of information available to educate people on transportation safety issues. Various agencies develop local safety information about Maine, but national studies certainly broaden the understanding of what the trends are and why they are happening, and contribute ideas for decreasing crash frequency and severity. The links here are a sample of the information that is available from various Maine and US sources. Crash data and records can be viewed on our Crash and Safety Data page.

Strategic Areas

Mature Drivers

Large Animals

Moose

Other

Resources

The resources below are  not related to the topics/areas identified as Strategic Areas, Flash Facts, or Crash Data.