Kansas Drive To Zero Webinar Series
The Kansas Drive To Zero Webinar Series was created to support and strengthen local transportation safety efforts across the state. Through peer exchanges, best practice presentations, and training opportunities, the series highlights how local agencies are implementing safety plans and advancing proven safety strategies in their communities. Topics will include lessons learned from project implementation, funding opportunities, Safe System Approach integration, behavioral safety initiatives, and other resources that help localize the Drive To Zero vision. Whether you are just beginning your safety journey or looking to expand existing efforts, this series provides practical tools, real-world examples, and opportunities to learn from transportation safety professionals and peers across Kansas.
Webinar 2 - Building an Authentic Commitment to Safety
Tuesday, October 13 | 12:00 - 1:00 PM
Join Nicole Waldheim, co-author of NCHRP 08-171: Developing a Toolkit to Institutionalize the Safe System Approach (2026), for a discussion on Theme A: Authentic and Holistic Commitment to Safety. This webinar will explore what it means to embed safety as a core organizational value, foster leadership commitment, and build a culture that supports the Safe System Approach across all aspects of transportation decision-making. Participants will gain practical insights and strategies to help advance a lasting, organization-wide commitment to improving roadway safety.
The following topics will be covered in this webinar as part of Theme A:
Train Elected Officials and Decision Makers: This tool focuses on training elected officials, agency leaders, and commissioners to understand how their decisions, even indirect ones, may impact roadway safety.
Align Emergency Services Goals: This tool focuses on proactively engaging first responders in road planning and design, seeking common ground, and reducing frequent barriers to Safe System Approach (SSA) implementation.
Establish Accountability and Monitoring: This tool describes how accountability and monitoring, which involve requiring frequent evaluations and the adoption of effective new or different strategies, are essential for institutionalizing the Safe System Approach (SSA).
Leverage Public Health Expertise and Co-Benefits: This tool encourages collaboration with public health experts on communication strategies, data collection and key insights, community and mental health resources, and monitoring and accountability regarding roadway safety.
Engage Community and Media: This tool focuses on ways to authentically engage the community by tracking community input/concerns such as qualitative safety data and capturing near-miss incidents and other surrogate safety measures for proactive assessments.
Consider Upstream Conditions: This tool encourages users to shift from analyzing collisions as isolated events to examining upstream conditions, using proactive “W” questions (who, what, when, where, why) to uncover how transportation safety is shaped by broader socioeconomic factors such as land use, mobility options, and housing access.
To view the published toolkit, please visit https://www.nationalacademies.org/publications/29436.
About the Speaker:
Nicole Waldheim is a principal with Fehr & Peers and a nationally recognized multimodal safety expert. She has 20 years of experience in transportation planning and policy and has spent over a decade specializing in safety planning. Throughout her career, Nicole has led over 50 safety plans, including Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSPs), regional and local safety plans, and Vision Zero efforts. Nicole was one of the co-authors of NCHRP 08-171, Institutionalizing the Safe System Approach in Transportation Planning and Programming, on which the content for today's webinar is based.