Question 1 of 1 Using the principles we discussed in the Highway Safety lecture, describe a highway safety problem that you

have experienced on the roadway, determine several possible solutions to the problem, both low cost and high cost and identify which category you believe they would be. Then, describe as an engineer, how you might decide which solutions you would implement and how you might determine afterwards if you made the right decision.

I grew up in the country, and have been riding and driving rural back roads and highways my whole life, which has shed light on the multitude of roadway safety issues found on these rural roads. Whenever there was a fatal car crash in the newspaper or on the local news it wasnt in town or on the interstate it was on the winding and hilly back roads and highways that snaked through Augusta County. These tragic traffic accidents cause loss of life and property. Proper identification of accident causal factors is essential for composing countermeasures against traffic accidents and reducing related costs. However, two-lane rural roads have distinctive roadway characteristics compared with other types of roads. In order to find cost-effective countermeasures and prioritize roadway safety improvement plans for two-lane rural roadways, a better understanding of the relationship between accident risk and respective characteristics is necessary. With the large expanse of secondary low volume rural roads safety is obviously a very important issue on these roadways. Due to the low concentrated crash densities on these roadways in comparison to their expanse, it is much more difficult to identify high crash locations and problematic roadway areas in comparison to a high volume interstate. Methods

need to be established to properly identify high crash locations on secondary highways and rural roads in order to spend funds for safety improvements effectively. With the relatively small amounts of safety funds for local agencies to use in combination with the vast amount of mileage that exists for rural roads, it is not logical to consider roadway reconstruction system-wide in order to reduce the roadway fatalities. Statistically it is difficult to assess crashes on low volume roads. Also, multi-vehicle crashes are rarer events on low volume and rural 2 lane highways since many times low traffic volumes exist and the probability of two vehicles meeting are lower than those on higher volume roadways. Most of the crashes that occur on low volume rural roads are single vehicle crashes, and commonly involve lane departure. Faced with numerous highway safety projects and working with a limited budget, transportation safety engineers must choose the projects that result in the greatest reduction of fatalities and damages that result from motor vehicle accidents. Some of these options come at higher costs than others. Many rural area roads are winding, rolling, narrow, and lack adequate signage, shoulders, and roadway visibility. High cost solutions to these rural roadway problems include widening of lanes/pavement widths, adding and/or widening graded/stabilized shoulders, and widening/improvement of clear zones. The cost-benefit of these solutions is not apparent for lower volume rural roadways but implementing them selectively at proven high crash fatality road segments will result in a recognizable cost benefit.

Low cost safety solutions to rural roadways produce low cost but effective results in increasing the safety for vehicles and reducing the accident rates. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2004 rural roads accounted for approximately 57

percent of all fatal crashes. Contributing factors on rural roads include sharp curves, no shoulders, no pavement markings, and inconsistent signing. By targeting segments on these roadways that have a high crash rate, a found problematic environmental/roadway characteristic, or missing signage and improving signing for these areas and curves and eliminating nonstandard signing in order to conform to current state/county standards. A time consuming and possibly labor intensive but a cost improvement for rural roads is the removal of roadside obstacles such as trees, rocks, and increasing available stopping distance adjacent to the road. Single vehicle crashes on rural two-lane roads occur on curves, with the other 50 percent occurring on tangent sections. Post-mounted delineators and chevrons are two types of delineation treatments that are intended to warn drivers of an approaching curve and to provide guidance to drivers. These devices can provide drivers with a better appreciation of the sharpness of the curve before they enter the curve. In addition, once the driver is in the curve these devices provide continuous tracking information which helps the driver position their vehicle in the travel lane while traversing the curve. Several studies have reported that post-mounted delineators reduce crash rates and improve safety of rural roads at a low cost. Raised pavement markers (RPMs) can be used for additional delineation of the driving path on rural roads that often times becomes blurry due to weather conditions and nightfall due to road lighting and visibility. RPMs enhance the ability of the driver to track the roadway, particularly at night or during wet weather. RPMs can also provide tactile and auditory warning to drivers when vehicles traverse the markers, all of these keep drivers more aware of the path and less likely to crash. Many rural highway accidents involve a single vehicle roadway departure. The most common contributing factors to roadway departure crashes include: visibility in less than ideal

conditions, driver fatigue and drowsiness, and drivers who are inattentive, careless, or distracted, and drift out of the travel lane and off the road. By implementing rumble strips, raised or grooved patterns on the roadway, to rural highways the audible and tactile warnings when traversed by vehicle tires will keep the rural road driver more alert and cautious. Rumble strips placed on the shoulder or edge line are used to alert drivers that they are leaving the travel lane. Initially, shoulder rumble strips were placed on freeway shoulders and some undivided roadways as a countermeasure for roadway departure crashes. Additionally to edge line rumble strips and according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in 2004 approximately 57 percent of all fatal crashes happened on rural roads, with approximately 90 percent occurring on two-lane roads. Fourteen percent of crashes on rural, two-lane roads were a result of head-on or opposing-direction sideswipe crashes. Recently many areas have implemented centerline rumble strips on undivided roadways as a countermeasure to reduce head-on and opposing-direction sideswipe crashes. These provide a low cost beneficial solution for rural roadways. Prior to the implementation of any of the above given safety countermeasure for rural roadways we, the safety engineers, want to know with the highest degree of certainty possible, the expected effect of a countermeasure on highway safety. Safety engineers clearly benefit from a repeatable and objective process that facilitates the evaluation of a number of safety countermeasures at the same time, while providing with greater confidence an estimate of the expected effect on the rural roadway and intended highway safety improvement. Using engineering evaluations for the area and conducting surveys and case studies on the roadway in question as well as past research findings for comparative roadways is the best method to determine which changes should be implemented. Testing a portion of the roadways by

implementing the safety measures and performing before-after crash analysis, statistical accident reports, hazard reevaluation, and public surveys to gauge the success of the highway safety measures the safety engineer can expand or reevaluate the safety measures.

References http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/resources/fhwasa09027/resources/Low%20Cost%20Local %20Road%20Safety%20Solutions.pdf https://www.atssa.com/galleries/default-file/atssa50s.pdf http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/sr/sr292.pdf http://dot.ga.gov/doingbusiness/research/Documents/reports/r-RP9905.pdf