ATSSA members work on the front lines of traffic safety. They make roads safer by installing modern roadway safety devices and protecting workers during the road construction process. ATSSA members also work to reduce the number and severity of roadway crashes. According to federal statistics, each year motor vehicle crashes claim 42,000 lives and injure 3,000,000 people, incurring $230.6 billion in societal costs and $21 billion in direct taxpayer costs. The International Union of Police Associations says that more police officers die in motor vehicle crashes every year than by criminals’ bullets. According to AASHTO’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan, unless there is a change in crash rates, six out of 10 children born today will be injured in motor vehicle crashes during their lifetime, and one in 84 will die violently on roadways. 

Approximately 3,500 people die every month on our nation’s roadways. The increased tax burden from these crashes for taxpayers is nearly $14 billion with societal costs well over $150 billion. ATSSA’s proposal to invest $3 billion a year to enhance the nation’s roadway safety infrastructure is a sound investment that will pay for itself in reduced crashes. In addition, the funding mechanisms put in place to fund the Roadway Safety Program would provide much needed additional revenue to enhance the capacity of our nation’s transportation system. We look forward to taking these proposals to Congress and the American people to get their support for improving our roadway safetysystem and making “Safer Roads - Save Lives” a reality.

ATSSA has a committee dedicated to the advancement of guardrails. The association’s Guardrail Committee works to preserve funding through the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), a federal program which dedicates funds to infrastructure safety, promote a fully funded Highway Trust Fund (HTF) and other funding opportunities, work with ATSSA chapters and members to develop and deliver government relations services at the state level and encourage members to utilize these services, and educate the administration on roadway safety infrastructure.

FHWA barrier guidance is contained in the AASHTO Roadside Design Guide. However, FHWA field offices often raise numerous issues that involve interpretations, extrapolations, device selection, hardware deployment, or simply trying to fit safety devices into real world conditions. These questions and answers offer clarification on the use of roadside hardware for issues not covered by FHWA policy or topics that simply need additional explanation. They are the considered opinions of engineers in the FHWA Office of Safety Design and the FHWA Resource Center with helpful input from members of the American Traffic Safety Services Association's Guardrail Committee. 

This new publication, "Safety Benefits of Median Barrier and Roadside Guardrail," was developed to address some of the negative assumptions that have recently affected the guardrail and cable barrier industry. The study showcases the various technologies designed to specifically improve safety on our roadways. Featured are “success stories” where road user(s) lives were saved by the successful performance of guardrail and median barriers.

ATSSA recently co-moderated a session entitled, “Infrastructure Readiness, Reading the Road Ahead,” that addressed the ways in which U.S. infrastructure will  best accommodate Connected Automated Vehicles (CAVs) during the 2018 Automated Vehicle Symposium.

ATSSA’s 2018 Midyear Meeting was a success, bringing more than 300 members and industry partners from across the United States together in Williamsburg, Virginia to discuss the future of the roadway safety industry.

ATSSA is now accepting nominations for the ATSSA National Media Award. The annual award is presented for fair, balanced, and informative reporting on the transportation and roadway safety industry.

ATSSA’s Government Relations team and the CAL-ATSSA chapter are working together to advocate against the repeal of a recently passed state gas tax increase that funds roadway infrastructure maintenance and repair.

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has adopted the four categories used in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP)-350 into its state plan for Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware-16 implementation.