Highway Safety

Traffic safety has been a growing concern for road

safety professionals
In spite of this concern, traffic safety problems have
caused enormous economic and social costs
It is commonly accepted that there are many costs
associated with vehicular mobility:

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 Economic and social costs associated with road crashes greatly

exceed other mobility costs
Global problem
WHO has projected that traffic crashes will move from the 9th leading
cause of injury and death in 1990 to 3rd leading cause in 2020
Transport Canada reported approximately 600,000 traffic collisions in
1999, resulting in over 220,000 injuries and almost 3,000 deaths
In the US, approximately 42,000 people were killed on the nations
highways, and 3 million were injured, with an estimated cost of these
crashes approaching $182 billion in 1999
For a more visual idea:
More people have been killed in traffic collisions in the US than in all
of the wars that nation has been involved in
The number of people killed on US highways is equivalent to one jet
airliner crashing and killing everyone onboard every single day
More people have died on Canadas roads in the last 50 years than
the number of Canadians killed in the two world wars
On average, six Canadians die in road crashes every day
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Data also show that significant improvements have been made in

highway safety during the last several decades despite increases in
the total vehicle-miles travelled
These advances are due to improvements in:
Vehicles (safety belts, airbags, crashworthiness, collision prevention
systems)
Infrastructure design (roundabouts, shoulder rumble strips)
Roadside hardware (guardrail end treatments, break-away sign posts and
light posts)
Traffic engineering (raised pavement markings, new reflective sign
sheeting or special applications)
Enforcement and public awareness efforts (safety belt and alcohol laws and
programs)

However, decreases in fatality and injury rates have levelled off

since the early 1990s
For example, number of traffic related fatalities on Canadian roads since
2000 has been fluctuating between a minimum of 2,430 in 2004 and a
maximum of 2,610 in 2006

In addition, low fatality and injury rates still mean large numbers of
deaths and serious injuries because of the significant increase in
VMT
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Issues Involved in Transportation

Safety
What term should we use: crash or accident?
What are the causes of transportation crashes?
What are the factors involved in transportation
crashes?

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Crash or Accident:
Accident is a commonly accepted term for an occurrence
involving one or more vehicles resulting in property damage,
injury, or death
Recently, the term accident has been replaced by crash or
collision

To prevent transportation crashes, we must be able to identify

the causes of these crashes

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Factors Involved in Transportation

Crashes

Causes of crashes (or factors contributing to crashes)

can be grouped into four categories:
Very often stated as driver error
Examples:
Inattention to the roadway and surrounding traffic
Failure to yield the right of way
Traveling at a speed too high for the conditions
Drowsiness
Drinking
Using cell phone and other distractions
The major contributing factor to crashes
Estimates in the literature put driver error as a contributing
factor in 90-95% of crashes
See examples for driver conditions in Ontario crashes
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Examples:

Faulty brakes (especially in heavy trucks)

Failure of electric system
Worn tires
Read for example:
Toyota to pay $1.2B to settle criminal probe (USA Today
Mar 20, 2014) [into its handling of unintended acceleration
problems that led to recalls of 8.1 million vehicles beginning
in 2009]
Faulty GM ignition switch linked to 2nd crash death in
Canada (CBC News Oct 30, 2014)

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 Condition and quality of the roadway including pavement,

shoulders, intersections, and the traffic control system
Examples:

Insufficient stopping sight distance

Insufficient sight distance at intersections or railroad crossings
Hidden intersections
Short weaving sections
Pavement-related factors

Physical and climatic environment surrounding a transportation

vehicle, most commonly weather
Examples:
Wet or icy pavement
Fog

Note however that most crashes take place on dry pavements

during clear weather and in daylight
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Strategic Highway Safety Plans

There is a real need to establish strategic plans for
highway safety improvement
A typical Highway Safety Improvement Program
(HSIP) would consist of three components:

Quantitative analysis can be carried out using the

methodologies in the Highway Safety Manual (HSM)

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 According to the HSM, roadway safety management

should involve six steps (Figure 5.1):
Network screening: identify and rank locations with
potential for safety improvement
Diagnosis: identifying causes or contributing factors to
collisions
Select countermeasures: suggest treatments at the identified
locations
Economic appraisal: economic analysis to identify
economically justifiable projects
Prioritize projects: prioritize economically justifiable
projects within the available budget based on the potential
for safety improvement
Safety effectiveness evaluation: evaluate effectiveness of
implemented countermeasures for future use
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Crash Data
Network screening, and hence safety management, relies
on the availability of reliable crash data
Crash information is recorded by the police on the scene
or in self-reporting stations
Issues on accuracy and reliability
Read for example Was he racing or not? It's in the judge's
hands. Lawyers highlight differing testimony in fatal dangerous
driving trial (Ottawa Citizen January 21, 2012)

Data are compiled by transportation agencies

Example in the US:
Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS)
Compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA)
Contain data on all fatal traffic crashes:
At least one fatality within 30 days of crash
Covers all 50 states, District of Colombia, and Puerto Rico
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 Pictorial information on crashes at a specific intersection can

be represented in the form of a collision diagram to show:

See Figure 5.4 in the textbook

See PIARC Road Accident Investigation Guidelines for Road
Engineers
(www.who.int/entity/roadsafety/news/piarc_manual.pdf) for
example of vehicle codes in collision diagrams:

A pictorial general survey of a site is referred to as condition

diagram
It can be used to relate the physical perspective of a site with crashes at
the site
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Crash data should be free of regression to the mean

(RTM) bias
Crashes are random and rare events
Crash data exhibit natural fluctuation
Observed crash frequencies over short periods can be much
higher or lower than the mean value
Data should be available for a long enough period

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Figure 4 WHO (2004)

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Table 1 WHO (2004)

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Canadian Safety Trends

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Breakaway Sign Posts (Roadside Design

Guide 2002)

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Crash Contributing Factors (PIARC

2007)
Human behaviour
93%

Road factors
34%

3%

57%

26%
4%

1%

2%

6%

Vehicle factors
13%
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Driver Condition in Crashes in Ontario

(ORSAR 2007)

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Example Weaving Section on Hwy 417 between Lyon

& Bronson (Source: Google Maps)

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Car Falling in Sinkhole

Hwy 174, Ottawa (Source:
Ottawa Citizen)

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Sinkhole swallows car in

China

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Environment Condition in Crashes in Ontario

(ORSAR 2007)

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HSIP (Figure 5.1; Garber & Hoel 2009)

Planning
Component

Process 1: Collect and maintain

data
Process 2: Identify hazardous
locations and elements
Process 3: Conduct Engineering
Studies
Process 4: Establish project
priorities

Implementation
Component

Process 1: Schedule and implement safety

improvement projects

Evaluation
Component

Process 1: Determine the effect of highway

safety improvements

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HSM

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Figure 5.4 (Garber & Hoel 2013)

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Vehicle Movement Codes in New Zealand

(PIARC 2007)

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Example Vehicle Movement Codes (Roess et al

2004)

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