If you happen to be driving along the road on post and see a Stryker in your rearview mirror, rest easy knowing the vehicle’s operator will be following the guidelines of an updated instruction incorporating traffic safety and joint tactical vehicle safety.

Members of two joint working groups met at the Naval Safety Center Feb. 12 to revise a Department of Defense (DoD) instruction currently focused specifically on traffic safety that will ultimately enhance the “readiness of our organizations across the services.”  

The Joint Motor Vehicle and Joint Tactical Vehicle Working Groups met to discuss the changes and gain concurrence on guidance the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) will publish in Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 6055.04, “DoD Traffic Safety Program,” which will be renamed “DoD Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Program,” covering traffic safety and joint tactical vehicle safety.

The groups are composed of representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and OSD. “We’re making sure we’ve got common language in the new instruction that ties traffic safety and joint tactical vehicle safety together where it’s applicable, enhancing the readiness of our organizations across all the services,” said Lt. Col. Alex Warthen, Joint Tactical Vehicle Working Group chair.

William McInnis, who chairs the Joint Motor Vehicle group, pointed out there are 18 working groups and task forces that address issues relating to safety in the DoD, such as Joint Lessons Learned, Aviation and Leading Indicators.

“The bottom line for all these working groups is it’s about readiness,” McInnis said. “What everybody [here today] does, and all the other thousands of people out there that are proponents for safety, it’s not about restricting what units do, it’s about ensuring readiness, reducing risk without becoming risk averse, and knowing our most valuable resource are those young men and women who put on the uniform. So we have to do all we can to protect them.”

The work being done by these safety groups yield positive outcomes. For example, the Joint Motor Vehicle working group was the driver behind implementing improved motorcycle safety training.

“We saw a spike in off-duty motorcycle mishaps back in the 2007-2008 timeframe,” said McInnis.  This drove the services, and with this group serving as the coordinator between all the services, to ensure more investment in motorcycle training.  

“Motorcycle safety became an emerging issue back in the middle of the last decade and now our motorcycle fatality numbers are down by 40 percent across the services since we started,” said McInnis.

“When you have a force that is taking these best practices, being safe, when everybody shows up to work and when we safely accomplish getting from point A to point B, we are more ready,” said Warthen.  “And that ultimately is what we are trying to accomplish.  This all leads back into readiness, lethality and warfighting.  Every time we lose a Marine or a Sailor, our ability to be ready for the next fight is lessened exponentially.

“If I’m talking to that 18-year-old who is struggling to understand why safety is important, why they have to wear a helmet in a tactical vehicle on the highway, it’s because ultimately, number one, we want you to survive your enlistment and go off to have a long and happy life. But number two, we need you in a full-up unit for that fight, because if you’re not there, then all the experience, all your training, goes with you, and somebody else now has two jobs.”

And being safe doesn’t apply only on the job. “The same thing applies off duty,” said McInnis. “Every loss of a service member is a tragedy in and of itself, and every time a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine is killed or hurt in their off-duty experiences, that leaves a hole in a formation. The services lost over 100 men and women to off-duty mishaps last year, so there’s holes in 100 formations that are therefore less ready to execute their mission.” 

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