Director's Corner

Always worth repeating: Safety is our top priority

The tragic death of our colleague Alex Rodish this summer reminds us that roadway work is dangerous, and safety can never be guaranteed. As such, safety must take precedence over everything else, and we must do all we possibly can to protect every motorist, Caltrans employee and contractor.

That’s why I want to take this opportunity to remind you of some of the many resources Caltrans offers regarding safety. A good place to start is our Safe System Approach (SSA), which seeks to eliminate all roadway deaths and serious injuries by 2050.

SSA takes a realistic and holistic view of safety for all road users, including those who walk, bike, drive, ride transit or travel by other modes. The key principles of this approach are:

• Death/serious injury is unacceptable. Preventing fatal and serious injury crashes on our roads is priority No. 1.
• Responsibility is shared. All stakeholders must work to ensure that crashes don’t result in deaths or serious injuries.
• Humans make mistakes. It is critical and realistic to design and operate our transportation system to accommodate mistakes.
• Safety is proactive and reactive. Proactive tools must supplement – if not replace – reactive strategies to identify and mitigate risks.
• Humans are vulnerable. The system’s design and operation must account for human fragility and reduce impact forces.
• Redundancy is crucial. If one part of the system fails, overlapping parts are in place and work as designed to protect people and defines how we respond to safety challenges, implement interventions, and evaluate progress.

Caltrans’ Division of Safety Programs contains much more information about the SSA and other safety-related material on its “Framework for Road Safety in California” intra-departmental webpage.

Also, I encourage you to bookmark our Division of Health and Safety’s “Employee Safety Bulletins & Alerts” webpage. Recent entries include tips for dealing with respiratory viruses, extreme heat, and suspicious powders or substances in the workplace.

Other resources include our Employee Safety Manual Online, the many and varied offerings of our Employee Assistance Program (which always contributes the Health and Safety story in each issue of CT News), and the links provided on Safety Programs’ onramp homepage.

Thank you for doing all you can to safeguard yourself, your coworkers, and the public. Take care, everyone.