From Headquarters Public Affairs
Roadway safety in California is at the forefront of all stakeholders that participate in the Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP). After working with multiple federal, state, regional, local and tribal agency partners, the latest 2025–2029 SHSP was signed in March of 2026 by California State Transportation Agency Secretary Toks Omishakin.
With a goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries on all of California’s public roadway by 2050, this comprehensive plan provides California with guidance to identify and address key factors that lead to fatal or serious injury collisions.
“Everyone has the right to travel safely on our roads, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, gender, age, ability or geographic location,” Omishakin said. “By working together, each one of us can make a positive difference in the lives of all California road users and contribute to the health and economic vitality of our state.”
The SHSP is aligning its activities and actions with the state’s Safe System Approach (SSA), which identifies six guiding principles:
- Death and serious injuries are unacceptable: The SSA prioritizes crashes that result in death and serious injuries, since no one should experience either when using the road system.
- Humans make mistakes: People will inevitably make mistakes that can lead to crashes, but the road system can be designed and operated to accommodate human mistakes and injury tolerances to avoid death and serious injuries.
- Humans are vulnerable: People have limits for tolerating crash forces before death and serious injury occurs; therefore, it is critical to design and operate a road system that is human-centric and accommodates human vulnerabilities.
- Responsibility is shared: All stakeholders (road system users and managers, vehicle manufacturers, etc.) share responsibility that crashes do not lead to fatal or serious injuries.
- Redundancy is crucial: Reducing risks requires that all parts of the road system be strengthened, so that if one part fails, the other parts still protect people.
- Safety is proactive and reactive: Proactive tools should be used to identify potential safety hazards before crashes happen while also recognizing the importance of historical data that helps inform where and why crashes are happening.
Through the SHSP, safety stakeholders from over 600 public and private agencies and organizations work together to find and implement data-driven strategies to improve safety across public roadways in California.
There is also a corresponding implementation plan that details specific actions. The SHSP identified 16 challenge areas, such as lane departures, impaired driving, and speed management/aggressive driving, that statistically create the greatest challenges to road safety and/or provide the greatest opportunity to achieve the SHSP goal.
Challenge area teams collaboratively develop actions that provide opportunities to address critical safety issues such as those experienced by bicyclists and pedestrians traveling on mixed-use facilities. The implementation plan will be regularly updated to ensure that identified actions move the state towards the goal of zero traffic fatalities and serious injuries.
If you want to learn more about saving lives on California public roads visit dot.ca.gov/programs/safety-programs/shsp and consider how to get involved.