Vision Zero Toolkit
Between 2019 to 2023, Central Indiana experienced 1,028 fatal crashes, 18,615 incapacitating crashes, and 19,643 total crashes. These are often called “accidents,” but traffic deaths are preventable. Vision Zero views traffic deaths as an urgent public health crisis and employs strategies to eliminate serious injuries and fatalities from crashes (not necessarily all crashes).
This approach recognizes that road design and vehicle design influence driver behavior, and even experienced drivers make mistakes. To save lives, road design, vehicles, and emergency responses must be designed to reduce risks, accommodate inevitable human error, and self-explain/enforce safe speeds through safe road design.
The Indianapolis MPO created the Vision Zero Toolkit to educate Central Indiana residents about Vision Zero and offer local strategies for safer transportation across all modes—whether driving, walking, cycling, or using mobility devices and across all contexts whether urban, suburban, or rural. The toolkit uses the Safe Systems Approach, focusing on safe road users, vehicles, speeds, infrastructure, and post-crash care. It also builds on regional successes, like suburban roundabouts and redesigned urban streets, to create safer, more effective transportation systems.
What's In the Toolkit
- Data Collection and Benchmarks: Organizing, collecting, and evaluating data to inform solutions and ongoing effectiveness is a key component of Vision Zero results. This section includes best practices for collecting and accessing data, interpreting, and effectively using that data.
- Planning and Policy Strategies: To be effective, leadership must adopt and execute concrete policy changes. This section focuses on the legislative, educational, policy, and enforcement strategies a community can deploy as part of their commitment to Vision Zero.
- Design Strategies: Roadway design is a critical piece of Vision Zero, and builds long-term solutions for all users. This section identifies several design-based solutions for communities of all sizes and needs.
- Resources: Case studies and external sources for more specific information on Vision Zero action plans from across the country are included in this section.
- Communications: Committing to Vision Zero is worth celebrating and sharing widely. It will also require communication within the impacted communities and with decision makers, leadership, and interested parties. This section shares tools, templates, techniques, message creation, and branding materials needed to help educate decision makers and the broader public.
Toolkit Resources
In addition to the Toolkit itself, the IMPO has compiled resources for local agencies to understand and implement Vision Zero. These resources include logo and design resources, photos and infographics, communication strategies, and fact sheets. These resources and the full toolkit document will be available for download via our Google Drive. Looking for additional resources, data, or planning tools? Contact us at info@indympo.org.
Crashes Not "Accidents"
Even subtle editorial choices surrounding traffic crash reporting have major impacts on a reader’s understanding of the crash including if the reader sympathizes with the victim or blames them and what solutions the reader wants to see. The risk of a deadly crash is largely determined by speed and speed is largely determined by road design. If we accept the premise of Vision Zero, we cannot accept the status quo that refers to deadly traffic crashes as isolated “accidents” because road design is a policy choice and crash deaths are systemic. By acknowledging the preventable nature of traffic crashes, communications professionals can frame the crisis as solvable and encourage solutions.
Resources
- World Health Organization - Reporting on road safety: a guide for journalists
- Collaborative Sciences Center for Road Safety - Shaping the narrative around traffic injury: A media framing guide for transportation and public health professionals
- Berkley SageTREC - Media narratives of pedestrian & bicyclist-involved crashes
- Vision Zero Reporting - Vision Zero Article Analysis Tool
Crash Coverage for Vulnerable People
The research paper Does news coverage of traffic crashes affect perceived blame and preferred solutions? from Texas A&M University offers an analysis of the effects of news coverage and best practices. The study showed that communications professionals can significantly reduce victim blaming of traffic crash victims through careful framing and sentence structure. The study also showed that thematic framing with a focus on the ongoing crisis (i.e. by mentioning the number of people who have died in traffic accidents) significantly increased support for infrastructure improvements that would reduce crashes.
| Status Quo | Better Practice | Effect of status quo |
| Accident: “Pedestrian killed in accident on Main Street.” | Crash: “Pedestrian killed in crash on Main Street.” | Obscures preventable nature of crashes |
| Non-agentive: “A pedestrian was hit and killed.” (no agent) | Agentive: “A pedestrian was hit and killed by a car.” | Obscures role of a human actor |
| Focus on pedestrian: “A pedestrian was hit and killed by a car.” | Focus on vehicle: “A car hit and killed a pedestrian.” | Increases blame for the focus of the sentence |
| Object-based language: “A car jumped the curb.” | Person-based language: “A driver drove over the curb.” | Obscures role of a human actor |
| Counterfactual statements: “The pedestrian darted into the street.” | Not included | Increases perceived blame for the victim |
| Episodic framing: Treats the crash as an isolated incident. | Thematic framing: “This is the tenth fatal collision this year.” | Prevents readers from connecting the dots between incidents and thus shifts attention to individual rather than systematic solutions |
Source: Goddard, Tara, et al. “Does news coverage of traffic crashes affect perceived blame and preferred solutions? evidence from an experiment.” Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives, vol. 3, 2019, p. 100073, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trip....
IMPO Vision Zero Policy
On August 17, 2022 the IMPO Transportation Policy Committee adopted a Vision Zero Policy committing to reduce serious and fatal crashes by 35% by 2040. The IMPO considers this a starting point toward the goal of eliminating traffic deaths fully in the long term. Vision Zero is the strategy to eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries on all roadways. Vision Zero is built on the basis that traffic deaths and severe injuries are preventable. Vision Zero emphasizes a Safe Systems approach, which acknowledges that people make mistakes, and focuses on influencing system-wide practices, policies, and designs to lessen the severity of crashes.
Other IMPO Safety Initiatives
The IMPO strives to support safety across its core programs and works to create a regional transportation system designed to safely and comfortably accommodate all users, of all ages and abilities. To learn more about the IMPO's infrastructure funding programs, local technical assistance planning programs, crash dashboard, Safe Streets for All plan, road safety audits, and other IMPO initiatives please start at our Safety and the IMPO landing page.
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