Effective Work Zone Safety Public Outreach

The national guidance document Toward Zero Deaths: A National Strategy on Highway Safety emphasizes the importance of integrating social science research with traditional highway safety approaches. Virtually all state DOTs in the United States conduct work zone safety public outreach campaigns, which can be viewed as direct attempts to address the social and psychological influences that contribute to speeding and other undesirable driver behavior in work zones. These safety campaigns often have an ambitious goal of permanently changing driver behavior.