At the NACE 2019 Annual Meeting in Wichita, Kansas, Jay Otto will host a skill building, interactive workshop on, “Changing Traffic Safety Culture.” Growing positive traffic safety culture within organizations and communities has the potential to significantly improve traffic safety in rural America. During Jay’s workshop, attendees will participate in two modules about safety culture. The modules will include practical examples addressing critical issues in traffic safety. In the first module, attendees will learn the basics about intentional behavior, how a variety of stakeholders across our organizations influence behavior and introduce a basic definition of traffic safety culture which can be used to improve traffic safety. A case study from rural Utah to improve seat belt use will provide a practical example of the concepts. In the second module, attendees will apply the idea of safety culture to an organizational setting and engage in an exercise to explore ways of growing bystander engagement as a protective behavior within safety culture. Attendees will leave the workshop with a better understanding of how to change behavior, a working definition of traffic safety culture, and ideas about how they can leverage their role (and the role of others) in growing a positive traffic safety culture.
