“Aren’t you already a Road Safety Professional?”

I have some new initials behind my name.  Erin L. Curry, P.E., R.S.P.  I am now a certified Road Safety Professional (RSP).  (To read what the P.E. means, check out this blog post). Charles Cochran in our Birmingham, AL office also obtained the certification.  A few months ago the Transportation Professional Certification Board (TPCB) announced a new certification available to transportation and safety-related professionals.  Various organizations in the United States and Canada collaborated to create this new certification to establish a recognized level of practice and knowledge and to incentivize safety education.  

Road safety has grown as an emphasis in transportation engineering the last decade due to the increasingly large number of lives lost on US highways.  In 2018, the state of Tennessee recorded 1,047 traffic fatalities, a 2.2% increase over 2017.  As we’ve shared many times on our blog, Sain Associates has a number of employees who focus on road safety in our work. 

In the Pulaski, TN office, we’ve been working with the TDOT Project Safety Office for many years on Road Safety Audits and other safety initiatives, including an award-winning evaluation of the TDOT safety program.  Sain Associates’ leaders felt this new certification would add further credence to our expertise in the road safety field and encouraged Charles and me to take the steps to become certified.  Two other employees will be taking the exam soon. 

There are two levels of RSP certification.  Level 2 is still in the development phase. 

Steps to Level 1 Certification:

  1. Hold a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university and a minimum of two years experience as a transportation, highway safety, or public health professional or a minimum of four years experience in those fields.
  2. Application and fee.
  3. Exam.
  4. Upon passing, continuing education is required, and the certification is valid for three years.

The exam focused on many topics, including motorist behaviors, road characteristics, crash data analysis, countermeasures, and the development of safety plans.  The exam was not as easy as Charles and I were expecting, but, thankfully, we started the New Year with the good news that we both passed.