Strategic Highway Safety Plan: Target Zero

How many deaths and serious injuries are “acceptable” on Washington’s roadways? How many of your family members would it be “acceptable” to lose to traffic crashes each year? Ten? Five?

Of course, the answer is zero. The personal, financial and societal loss for every person killed or injured in traffic crashes is enormous. The loss of even one family member, co-worker or friend is unacceptable.

That’s why Washington state has adopted Target Zero — a goal to reduce traffic fatalities and serious injuries on Washington's roadways to zero by the year 2030. Our goal is zero deaths and serious injuries, because every life counts.

Learn more on the Target Zero website.

Target Zero is the Strategic Highway Safety Plan

The Target Zero report is also Washington state's Strategic Highway Safety Plan (PDF, 30.1MB), a requirement of the Federal Highway Administration's Highway Safety Improvement Program. Target Zero is a data-driven, long-term plan to identify priorities and solutions, create goals and develop a common understanding among the agencies working to keep Washingtonians safe. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and our traffic safety partners use it to:

• Set statewide priorities over the next three to four years.
• Identify different strategies for addressing each emphasis area and factor.
• Help guide federal and state project funding toward the highest priorities and most effective strategies.
• Monitor statewide outcomes for each priority area.

Coordination, collaboration and communication among traffic safety partners are key to the implementation of the strategies that will help achieve the Target Zero goal.

Getting to Zero: The Highway Safety Improvement Program Implementation Plan

Federal law requires WSDOT to develop an annual implementation plan that describes the actions WSDOT will take to make significant progress toward meeting safety targets. The WSDOT Highway Safety Improvement Program Implementation Plan: Getting to Zero not only includes annual performance targets and trends, but also identifies reactive and proactive approaches to reducing fatal and serious crashes, consistent with emphasis area identified in our Target Zero plan.