MoDOT's Highway Safety Division has announced the rebranding of their Youth Traffic Safety Leadership Training program. The TEAM SPIRIT program will now be called TRACTION - Teens Taking Action to Prevent Traffic Crashes. While this is a new look for the program, it will remain consistent with the program's goals and implementation.
"The program has been in existence for over 20 years. It will have a new look, but the traffic safety messages will remain the same," said MoDOT's Director of Highway Safety Bill Whitfield.
Traffic crashes remain one of the leading causes of death and serious injury for Missouri teens. TRACTION is designed to empower youth to take an active role in decreasing unsafe driving habits like driver inattention, the use of alcohol and other drugs that can cause impaired driving, and encouraging all teens to buckle up.
TRACTION seeks to accomplish this mission by providing youth and their adult advisors with the motivation, information, skills and support necessary to develop a plan of action that addresses unsafe driving habits. It also promotes safety belt usage through events and activities they implement within their schools and communities.
Approximately 100 students and 20 advisors will be selected to attend each of our training conferences. Over 15 high school and college students serve as facilitators for the school teams. The training is educational, high energy, and it provides an opportunity to make a difference and save lives in Missouri. Conference dates are July 23 -25, 2017 in Cape Girardeau, and July 27-29, 2017 in Columbia.
Please make plans to be a part of this life-saving effort by attending one of our summer conferences. Your school can be a part of making a difference and saving lives!
Did You Know This?
MoDOT Historic Preservation Section seeks help from the public
MoDOT is developing a programmatic agreement for common concrete and steel bridges constructed before 1945 to streamline the Section 106 review process for bridges. Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 requires agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties.
To aid in the process, MoDOT is asking the public to help identify bridges that are associated with historical events or people of importance to a community.
The public can visit the project website here - Bridges to view photographs of the bridges being studied as well as basic engineering information about each bridge, including its age. An online comment form can be completed for bridges identified by the public with space to submit reasons why the bridge is locally important.
Public input is requested by Feb. 15, 2017. The history and engineering of bridges identified will be studied, and recommendations on eligibility will be made about the eligibility of each bridge for the National Register of Historic Places. The public will be able to see the results of the study on the website.
The programmatic agreement will study more than 700 common concrete slab and beam bridges, steel girder bridges and 850 culverts. For National Register-eligible bridges that may be removed by a future project, preservation options and mitigation measures will be identified.
For more information on the Pre-1945 Common Bridge Programmatic Agreement, please contact
Senior Historic Preservation Specialist Karen Daniels at
karen.daniels@modot.mo.gov or by telephone at 573-526-7346.
Safer Roadways
Fatality update
Did you know...in Missouri between 2012-2014, 70 percent of unrestrained vehicle occupant fatalities were male.
Statewide Fatality Totals
as reported on the
Missouri State Highway Patrol
website as of Dec. 18, 2016:
2016 Totals as of 12-18-16 - 909
2015 Totals as of 12-18-15 - 850
2014 Totals as of 12-18-14 - 733
2013 Totals as of 12-18-13 - 735
2012 Totals as of 12-18-12 - 797
2011 Totals as of 12-18-11 - 765
The 909 fatality total
for 2016 is a
7 percent increase
for the year.
Sixty-one percent
of those fatalities
were unbuckled.
Missouri Dept. of Transportation | (888) 275-6636 P.O. Box 270 Jefferson City, MO 65102-0270
TRACTION seeks to accomplish this mission by providing youth and their adult advisors with the motivation, information, skills and support necessary to develop a plan of action that addresses unsafe driving habits. It also promotes safety belt usage through events and activities they implement within their schools and communities.
To aid in the process, MoDOT is asking the public to help identify bridges that are associated with historical events or people of importance to a community.
