Yolo County encompasses approximately 1,021 square miles with 752 miles of road. These roads are used for local traffic, commuting, bicycling, walking, and for local farm business. The County’s mission is to preserve, enhance and promote quality of life and public safety through the responsible development of reliable and sustainable infrastructure and services. The County was awarded a Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) grant to develop a plan, as described below, to achieve zero fatal and serious injury collisions on their roadways.

The Yolo County Comprehensive Safety Action Plan (CSAP) seeks to enhance safety for all users of the County’s transportation system, with a focus on county roads and the communities they serve. Corridors are focused on non-Interstate roadways within the County (in other words, not including I-5, I-80, and I-505) and outside of the incorporated cities of Winters, Woodland, Davis, and West Sacramento. Particular emphasis is placed on rural communities such as Esparto, Guinda, Dunnigan, Knights Landing, and Clarksburg, where the primary roadways also function as main streets, intercommunity connectors, and regional routes.

The objective is to identify locations and patterns of crashes and areas of community concern in order to prioritize a suite of implementable countermeasures and create a roadmap toward Vision Zero. The plan aims to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries through targeted strategies, investments, and partnerships.

The CSAP project team will conduct a comprehensive, data-driven analysis to identify crash locations, severity, contributing factors, and crash types using data from 2015-2024. This analysis will include all roadway users—pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorists—and will be supplemented by a literature review and an inventory of existing transportation conditions. The resulting data will inform transportation safety needs and guide the development of targeted strategies and projects.

The Safe System Approach is a way of thinking about road safety that starts with a simple idea: people make mistakes, and our bodies are easily harmed in crashes. Instead of blaming individuals when something goes wrong, this approach focuses on designing roads, vehicles, speeds, and emergency response systems to reduce the chances that a mistake leads to serious injury or death. It uses multiple layers of protection—like safer street designs, safer speeds, safer vehicles, and quicker emergency care—so that if one layer fails, others are still there to protect people. Everyone has a role to play, from government agencies to drivers and community members, with the shared goal of preventing fatal and serious crashes and making travel safer for all road users.

The Safe System Approach is a holistic, human‑centered framework adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation to eliminate roadway deaths and serious injuries by acknowledging that people make mistakes and are physically vulnerable. Rather than focusing solely on preventing crashes, it designs and operates the transportation system to reduce the likelihood of severe outcomes when mistakes occur by building multiple, reinforcing layers of protection. The approach is guided by six principles:

1. Death and serious injuries are unacceptable,
2. Humans make mistakes,
3. Humans are vulnerable,
4. Responsibility is shared,
5. Safety is proactive, and
6. Redundancy is crucial.

And is implemented through five key elements:

• Safer People,
• Safer Roads,
• Safer Vehicles,
• Safer Speeds, and
• Post‑Crash Care.

Together, these elements promote a transportation system that anticipates human error, minimizes crash forces, and protects all road users, with the ultimate goal of zero fatalities and serious injuries.

Click here to learn more about the Safe Systems Approach.

Other local Safety Plans:

• City of Davis LRSP
• UC Davis Moving Forward Together
• City of Woodland LRSP
• City of West Sacramento Vision Zero Safety Action Plan

View the links below for more information on Safety Action Plans:

• Vision Zero Community of Practice | FHWA (dot.gov)
• U.S. Department of Transportation - Safe Streets and Roads for All
• U.S. Department of Transportation - National Roadway Safety Strategy
• Vision Zero Network