Closing the Circle
A Multicultural Primer for State Highway Safety Offices
The Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) developed this report to
assist State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) in their outreach to multicultural
groups at the state and local level, including meeting the federal Limited English Proficiency (LEP) requirements and increasing the level of awareness of traffic safety issues and participation in their programs by multicultural groups. The resource was developed by GHSA with a grant from State Farm.
Note: This is a large file in PDF 
format. If you have trouble opening it in your browser, right-click on the link below and select "Save As" to download the file to your hard drive. Then, open the file directly from your computer.
Closing the Circle >> [4.4 MB, 52 pgs.]
Speak Up!
Legislative Advocacy Handbook
This handbook provides some resources and common sense guidance on how State Highway Safety Offices can most effectively conduct legislative advocacy. GHSA's advocacy efforts will be strengthened if the states and the Washington office advocate their positions together.
The publication has been divided into sections, for easier downloading. For the full document, download each section as a separate file. All files are in PDF format.
Survey of the
States
Periodically, GHSA surveys the State Highway Safety Offices on specific issues and publishes the results in a printed report.
Most recently, in 2008, GHSA published a report on state motorcycle safety activities designed to mitigate or reverse the recent annual increase in motorcycle crashes. In 2007, GHSA asked state highway safety agencies to complete a survey detailing motorcycle safety activities for the past three years. Fifty states plus the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico submitted completed surveys. The results of this survey are published in this report.
Other surveys have covered speeding, underage drinking, aggressive driving, and seat belt use. GHSA plans to continue issuing periodic surveys on other pertinent issues.
Survey of the States >>
Occupant Protection for Children Best Practices Manual
Highway safety officials and child safety advocates are working to improve occupant protection for children. However, they are often challenged by competing issues and limited resources.
To meet this challenge, State Farm Insurance Company® teamed with GHSA to develop this Best Practices Manual. The Manual provides comprehensive guidelines, an assessment tool and “real world” projects that exemplify one or more of the essential ingredients to program success: commitment, creativity, communication and cooperation.
Directions in Highway Safety
GHSA's printed newsletter Directions in Highway
Safety contains articles for GHSA
members and others interested in highway safety issues. GHSA mails hard copies of the newsletter to Members, reporters and industry partners. The newsletter is also published online for
general readership.
Readers can access the newsletter in two ways: by clicking directly on the articles of interest to them, or by downloading the entire PDF file.
Browse the latest issue: Summer 2009.
Past Issues >>
Highlights of Association Activity
August 2006 - May 2008
Learn about recent GHSA activities, including:
- Working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to enhance program performance;
- Develping model operating policies for the highway safety offices and a monitoring
advisory for oversight of grantees; and
- Advocating smart and sensible approaches to highway safety challenges.
Highlights of Association Activity >> 
Countermeasures That Work
Countermeasures That Work: A Highway Safety Countermeasure Guide for
State Highway Safety Offices (4th Edition) is a reference guide to help GHSA Members select effective, science-based countermeasures for major
highway safety problem areas.
This most recent edition was released in January 2009. The first edition was developed in late 2005 by
GHSA with funding from NHTSA. GHSA Executive Director Barbara Harsha
served as executive editor.
Note: This is a large file (9.14 MB). If you have difficultly opening the link, try right-clicking on the link and saving the file to your computer's hard drive.
Policies & Priority Statements
GHSA’s
members meet annually to discuss highway safety problems and
issues and
to adopt policy on highway safety issues of national concern and
importance.
The
most recent policies were adopted at the
Association’s
2008 Annual Meeting and are contained in this document. .
More information about GHSA's policies on specific issues can be found in the Issues section of the website.
Partnering with State Highway Safety Offices
In late 2004, GHSA and NHTSA published Partnering with State Highway Safety Offices: Tips and Tactics for Success, an important resource for community groups wishing to partner with State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs).
The publication explains how SHSOs develop their programs and how the community can be effective partners. It offers examples of how diverse groups such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Virginia's Historically Black Colleges and Universities have successfully partnered with their SHSOs on collaborative projects.
The report is available online at www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/outreach/TipsandTactics/index.htm.
Community Guidebooks
GHSA and NHTSA published a series of Community How To Guides on Underage Drinking to combat underage
drinking. The guides were created to help community members and prevention
specialists build comprehensive underage drinking prevention
programs.
They were developed as a part of GHSA's Underage Drinking Prevention Project (UDPP), an extensive six-year effort to assist local communities in developing, implementing and evaluating new programs or strengthening existing underage programs. UDPP was funded by a grant from NHTSA.
Published in 2001, the Community Guidebooks are available, in PDF version, through the NHTSA
website.
Other Selected Highway Safety Publications
GHSA has compiled a list of other highway safety publications pertinent to State Highway Safety Offices. Visit this page in the Links section of our site:
Selected Highway Safety Publications >>
