Traffic Safety Navigator: Winter 2026 newsletter highlights how Caltrans is reshaping traffic safety across California.

In partnership with the California Office of Traffic Safety and hundreds of organizations statewide, Caltrans is leading a shift that goes beyond rules and enforcement. The newly approved 2025–2029 Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP) reflects this change, recognizing traffic safety as a shared responsibility. By embracing a pro-social traffic safety culture, this plan taps into everyday relationships—families, friends, coworkers, and communities—to encourage safer behavior through shared values and mutual accountability.

This approach is already delivering results. Between 2022 and 2023, traffic fatalities in California dropped by 10%, saving 478 lives. Even stronger gains were seen among young drivers, aging drivers, and at intersections, where fatal crashes declined significantly. These improvements reflect a move away from blaming individual mistakes and toward designing safer systems—roads, policies, and programs that acknowledge human error and reduce the risk of severe outcomes.

What sets California apart is its focus on prevention before drivers ever hit the road. Caltrans is working with partners beyond traditional traffic safety, including public health experts, land-use planners, and tribal communities, to address the root causes of unsafe conditions.

Initiatives like Go Safely, California empower everyday people to become safety champions, while the State Priority Safety Corridor targets the local roads where most serious crashes occur. With more than 1,390 stakeholders collaborating statewide, California is proving that when safety is shared, more people get home alive.

Read the Newsletter