Introducing Safe Streets Nebraska, Another Way to Support Safety
It’s been another long year, with an increasing number of fatalities and injuries on Nebraska’s roadways. Oftentimes, advocating for safety on our roads feels like an isolating uphill battle. But it doesn’t have to be a lonely endeavor, especially given the number of residents who strongly believe in improving road safety. In fact, maybe all we need is a bit more cohesion. This desire for greater connectedness in the safety sector brought Tim Adams and me together this summer to discuss how to improve safety by helping adovcates join forces.
The Need for. . .Legality
I originally met Tim Adams when I served on the Vision Zero Technical Advisory Committee. He was the WSP consultant and guided our committee through the year-long effort to develop Omaha’s first Vision Zero Action Plan. We began meeting in May of 2025 to discuss forming a statewide coalition of safety advocates and experts. During our first meeting, Tim shared this powerful anecdote:
“Modifying laws can reach a 50% reduction in traffic fatalities, whereas modifying infrastructure, which can require 20 years and billions of dollars, only results in a 20% reduction to traffic fatalties.”
He did follow up to say that infrastructure is permanent, whereas laws are not. But his point was that maybe we need a coalition to advocate for change at the state level, not just at the city level. This was something I could get behind because one of the main things I learned while on the Vision Zero TAC was that many potential safety improvements are blocked by state law. One example of this is how red-light cameras are illegal at the state level, so unless something changes in the legislature, Omaha will never have the opportunity to consider using equitable red-light cameras as an enforcement option.
How to Help A Bill
Tim had earlier spoken with some state senators and brought back a bevy of information about how to effectively advocate for safety bills, including:
Safety advocates who want to create change at the state level by advocating for specific legislation must start doing the footwork in the summer, before the legislative session even starts.
For any bills that were held over from the earlier session, safety advocates need to connect with the representatives on the bill’s assigned committee to identify their concerns before any hearings and find out any amendments the senators may be amenable to, and
Safety advocates must be responsible for educating senators about the details and nuances of the bill, as well as the topic of safety at the state level in general.
What Is a Lobbyist?
Our joint To-do list was packed after our first few meetings. But our first task was understanding what a lobbyist does. Because we intended to form a coalition of road advocates to improve safety legislation at the state level, we needed to determine whether we were unintentionally forming a lobbying coalition. So we reached out to a few senators to find out what exactly a lobbyist is. Senator Hunt sent this helpful and comprehensive response:
In general, a person or group has to register as a lobbyist if they are attempting to influence legislators/policy on behalf of another person or entity, like a business or industry, and not their own views as an individual. From my basic understanding of your group and what you aim to do, I do not think you would be required to register as lobbyists - presuming that you are simply a group of likeminded citizen activists, representing yourselves and your own opinions, not for any business or industry's financial gain, you're not being paid by anyone or paying anyone to participate, etc. and that you just happen to unite behind certain policies you believe in. However if you were attempting to influence a bill on behalf of another specific entity -- say, The License Plate Reader Manufacturers Corporation and their interest in such bills -- then you would need to register as a lobbyist. I believe the other offices might have sent you this but here is a good place to start from the NADC: https://nadc.nebraska.gov/lobbying
Great, we finally understood we weren’t lobbyists!
Understanding the Obstacles
In late June, Tim and I met with Eric Koepe from the Nebraska Chapter of the National Safety Council, as he’s had decades of experience advocating for road safety at the state level. Meeting with him was clarifying and terrifying. Clarifying, because he provided us with a career lifetime of professional wisdom, and terrifying, because we were finally starting to understand how many obstacles there are to getting safety legislation passed. Here are just a few of the most salient points we took from that meeting:
The most common argument against safety legislation at the state level is personal liberty and rights.
People need to show up, not just the professionals, but the people impacted by traffic crashes. However, many folks personally affected by road fatalities in Nebraska are no longer willing to show up to advocate because they are drained and emotionally exhausted.
Lobbyists are effective because they have expertise in the legislature. Advocacy groups should consider hiring lobbyists or requesting lobbyists work pro bono. The existence of term limits can have the unexpected secondary effect of rendering lobbyists more powerful than senators since lobbyists then have more institutional knowledge than senators.
Never hurts to get support from the Governor; true across the country.
We left that meeting with a lot of insider knowledge and the understanding that to successfully support a bill, a safety coalition may need support from the Nebraska Department of Transportation, personal advocates, lobbyists, and the governor.
Next Steps and Launch
We identified our next steps, many of which included further educating ourselves on past safety legislation, identifying our safety goals, identifying and reaching out to potential coalition members, and establishing a website.
Tim has since taken the lead on this effort and created Safe Streets Nebraska. I encourage you to sign up on his website to find out more information about this statewide effort to make our roads safer!
~ Trilety Wade