The association's Standing Committee on Highway Traffic Safety awarded the 2016 AASHTO Safety Leadership Award to the state departments of transportation for Minnesota and Tennessee.

Committee Chairman Rudy Malfabon, the Nevada DOT director, presented the awards Nov. 14 at the annual meeting in Boston to MnDOT Commissioner Charles Zelle and TDOT Commissioner John Schroer.

The annual award recognizes a state that has made significant improvements in safety by showing leadership in safety, strong safety partnerships and strategic planning, and innovation in safety.

The announcement said Minnesota's DOT uses "multidisciplinary approaches to eliminate fatalities and life-changing injuries" that come from roadway crashes. Its safety focus extends beyond state-owned roads, since about half of Minnesota's federal Highway Safety Improvement Program funds are distributed to local agencies, and MnDOT works to deploy resources and assess crash risks with partners in the Toward Zero Deaths campaign around the state.

"MnDOT is willing to try new safety countermeasures and methods for moving toward zero," including alternative designs for intersections, warning strips in pavement and vendor contracts to install safety infrastructure treatments quickly.

The award citation said the Tennessee DOT and its partners across the state "are aggressively implementing their updated strategic highway safety plan and demonstrating their leadership with a wide range of safety initiatives."

In particular, the committee said TDOT has worked to address the risks of secondary crashes in queues, has expanded its deployment of vehicle-assistance Help trucks, conducted traffic incident management training and implemented a two-way sharing of publicly available crowd-sourced traffic data.