The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council welcomed Jared Perdue, Secretary of the Florida Department of Transportation during the Florida Regional Councils Association’s (FRCA) semiannual meeting this June.
Jared talked about Target Zero, which is a statewide initiative to reduce the number of transportation-related serious injuries and deaths across Florida to ZERO. Jared explained that on average, eight people are killed and 49 are seriously injured on Florida’s roads every day and in the majority of those serious and fatal crashes, driver behavior is a contributing factor. This initiative focuses on connecting, interacting, and designing our transportation system to specifically relate to those (drivers) that are most involved in crashes that resulted in serious injuries and fatalities.
Target Zero takes many existing safety programs or campaigns a critical step further by focusing on identifying behaviors that contribute to crashes and understanding why those behaviors are occurring, identifying who the specific target audience is, and creating impactful messages to influence safe driving. Target Zero is a data-driven, multi-faceted behavior change initiative that was created, in part, from direct conversations with those drivers that are most involved in crashes that resulted in serious injuries and fatalities. Target Zero focuses on influencing change in these specific behaviors before they occur.
