CORO Fellows draft Vision Zero Education Strategy
The Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs is a rigorous and demanding program designed to give fellows real-world experience working within local government to design and research innovative policies. This year, Vision Zero was very fortunate to be partnered with two Coro Fellows who were tasked with drafting our Education Strategy. Over the course of five weeks, Rachel Keyser and Julia Gould worked tirelessly to develop this report which includes interviews with 46 Los Angeles stakeholders, a literature review, and numerous key insights into how we can best message Vision Zero in Los Angeles in order to create culture shift. This report will serve as an indispensable resource for our education sub-committee, our communications consultant, and ultimately our Vision Zero Action Plan.
Three “guiding principals” were used in developing the report’s purposes:
- Increase overall awareness of Vision Zero, the issue of traffic safety, and impacts of dangerous road behavior;
- Facilitate a Los Angeles culture shift toward shared responsibility in road safety, the preventability of traffic deaths, and the idea that even one traffic death is unacceptable;
- Motivate safer traffic behavior among all those who travel in Los Angeles, with emphasis on demographics most likely to exhibit dangerous behavior.
In addressing these principals, the report developed an extensive methodology aimed at finding the most efficient and effective ways of educating people about Vision Zero. By combining qualitative data from interviews, quantitative data from an in-depth analysis of crash statistics, and supplemental information from Vision Zero campaigns in other cities, the report provided the following recommendations:
- Use multi-faceted mediums, message-tested content, grounded in behavior change theory to target high-risk populations and behaviors at both the individual and institutional levels.
- Mass-media and on-the-ground education efforts will need to be tailored to specific population segments based on campaign priorities and additional market research.
- Messaging content should stem from the underlying factors that drive dangerous behavior, as well as barriers to the successful adoption of Vision Zero core principles.
- Overall, the campaign should seek to not only raise awareness of Vision Zero, but change behaviors through shifting social norms around transportation and traffic safety.
