Background Information

The Problem
Fatalities and injuries on Kansas’s roadways are of epidemic proportions. In 2004, in Kansas alone, 459 people were killed in vehicles crashes. Another 2,000 suffered disabling injuries and some 23,000 suffered other injuries.

• Kansas ranks 43rd among the states in seatbelt use.
• Only half of Kansas children age 5-14 wear seat belts.
• Fatal and injury crashes cost every person in Kansas more than $1,015 a year. In 2004, the total cost was nearly $3 billion.
• Consider this: Mad Cow Disease has killed about 300 people worldwide since 1990. Another much-publicized condition, West Nile Virus, claimed a combined 540 lives in the U.S. in 2002 and 2003.

What's Been Done
The Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT), the Kansas Highway Patrol (KHP), and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) each are extremely concerned about the number of deaths and injuries on Kansas roadways and continue to work hard to reduce the numbers. In response to this epidemic, the heads of these agencies have joined together in a unique cross-agency endeavor, the Kansas Safe Driving Campaign.

The first step in the campaign was to raise awareness about the number of people being killed and injured on Kansas roadways. KDOT Secretary Deb Miller, KHP Col. William Seck, KDHE Secretary Roderick Bremby, and KDHE Director of Health Dr. Howard Rodenberg hosted several community forums across the state to start a discussion with citizens, city/county officials and legislators about their perspective and thoughts on traffic crashes and the impact they have on everyone’s lives. From those forums, it has become clear that this is a multi-faceted problem with no single solution. In conjunction with these forums, the agency executives also met with several editorial boards across the state. These meetings resulted in supportive editorials calling for changes.

Task Force – The Driving Force
Experience over the years has shown that agency recommendations alone do not carry the weight that citizen recommendations do. With that in mind, our agencies formed a taskforce of representatives from across the state to tackle this ever-increasing problem. This taskforce, known as the Driving Force, was announced in February 2006 by Governor Kathleen Sebelius and will explore the issues that have been raised in the community forums and produce a series of recommendations that can be implemented to reduce fatalities and injuries on Kansas’s roadways. The Driving Force will be much more effective in calling for legislative changes as well as underscoring the need for changes across the state in areas of education, enforcement and engineering.

In addition, to comply with new federal laws KDOT is required to develop a strategic highway safety plan. These plans are typically technical in nature, but the goal is to incorporate non-technical aspects that deal with the legislative, education and enforcement side of roadway safety. The Driving Force will be critical in providing those non-technical pieces of the plan which will enhance the state’s efforts to reduce roadway fatalities and injuries. This plan will be used as a blueprint for safety activities for years to come and has the potential to make a huge difference in the safety of Kansas roadways.