Nature of Road

Safety
UNIT 1
Introduction
 Road safety means safety for all road users.
 Road safety refers to the measures which must be
adopted by everyone while using roads.
 In India itself about 80,000 people are killed in road
crashes every year which is 13% of the total fatality
all over the world.
 The most common crash is by an average driver who
makes an error of judgement.
 Road safety is one of the most serious public health
issues in our country.
Introduction
 Rules must be followed by all users of roads
including pedestrians, cyclists, motorists, and bus
and truck drivers.
 Safety methods also relate to the construction,
layout of roads as well as traffic regulation
systems.
Definition
 Road traffic safety refers to the methods and
measures used to prevent road users from being
killed or seriously injured.
 Road safety means methods and measures aimed
at reducing the likelihood or the risk of persons
using the road network getting involved in a
collision or an incident that may cause property
damages, serious injuries and/or death.
Road safety involves
Design of roads and highways;
Laws pertaining to traffic and vehicles;
Systems of traffic safety and control;
Driver education;
School students’ education;
Traffic regulation and road safety signs;
Vehicle design; and
Motor vehicle safety inspection and maintenance
Science Based Perspectives
In road safety, following three areas have been usually
distinguished:
Road users related disciplines (psychology, sociology,
medicine, law...),
Road and environment related disciplines (road and traffic
engineering, urban and transportplanning ...),
Road traffic means related disciplines (mechanical
engineering, biomechanics, vehiclesdesign ...).
Science Based Perspectives
Road safety tasks fall within the field of traditional disciplines Such as
Civil, Electrical and mechanical engineering.
Psychology or Sociology.
Problems:
 Road safety is not an isolated goal. It should be assessed in the
context of mobility and costs as well.
 Road safety has very limited possibilities of conducting experiments.
Independent variables are numerous, complex and correlated; there
are also influences of economical and social variables, weather etc
Road safety demographics
 Every year the lives of approximately 1.3 million people are cut short
as a result of a road traffic crash. Between 20 and 50 million more
people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many incurring a disability as a
result of their injury.
 Road traffic crashes cost most countries 3% of their gross domestic
product.
 In India, a total number of 3,66,138 road accidents have been
reported by States and Union Territories (UTs) during the calendar
year 2020, claiming 1,31,714 lives and causing injuries to 3,48,279
persons.
 The State of Tamil Nadu with 45,484 accidents (12.4%) has recorded
the highest number of road accidents in 2020.
Road safety demographics
Road safety demographics
Road User Decision
 Decision making are most apparent during activities,
such as driving, that require spontaneous, complex
information processing and reasoning within time
constraints.
 The driver may have to make multiple decisions in quick
succession, which place extensive demands upon
cognitive processes.
 The driver may also have to ignore multiple distracting
auditory, visual and tactile stimuli from the car’s radio,
air conditioning, passengers and the visual environment.
Road User Decision
The Decision Making Process Model defines three important stages to
making a decision:
Option Generation,
Option Selection and
Action Initiation
Road User Decision
The Decision Making of the road user mainly influenced by the following
characteristics:
Physical Characteristics :- Vision, Hearing and Strength
Mental Characteristics : skill, intelligence, experience, knowledge and
literacy
Psychological Characteristics : anger, fear, superstition, impatience,
anxiety, etc
Environmental Characteristics : Atmospheric conditions, traffic
facilities, the traffic stream characteristics
 Road User Decision
Driver Characteristics
The two main driver characteristics
are visual activity and reaction
process.
The field of vision decides some of the traffic
engineering practices and functions like:
•Traffic signs are placed within 10 degrees
range with the expected line of sight of the
driver.
•The size and dimension of the traffic signs and
boards are adjusted to this distance.
•The driver's attention must be taken for an
event happening within the field of vision.
•Estimation of speed is also performed
depending on the field of vision.
 Reaction Time and Stopping
Distance

Source : https://rse.org.au/about-ryda/survey-thank-you/
Reaction Time and Stopping
Distance
Classification of Accidents
Based on Injuries
 Fatal
 Non Fatal

Based on Collisions
 Vehicle rear end collisions,
 side impact collisions,
 vehicle rollover,
 sideswipe collisions,
 head-on collisions,
 single car accidents and
 multiple vehicle pile-ups.
What causes traffic
accidents?
Main cause of accidents and crashes are due to human errors.
Over Speeding
Increase in speed multiplies the risk of accident and severity of injury during
accident.
Faster vehicles are more prone to accident than the slower one and the
severity of accident will also be more in case of faster the severity of accident
will also be more in case of faster vehicles.
Higher the speed, greater the risk.
At high speed the vehicle needs greater distance to stop i.e. braking distance.
What causes traffic
accidents?
Drunken Driving
◦ Alcohol reduces concentration.
◦ It decreases reaction time of a human body.
◦ It hampers vision due to dizziness.
◦ For every increase of 0.05 blood alcohol concentration, the risk of accident doubles.
What causes traffic
accidents?
Distractions to Driver
 Distractions could be outside or inside the vehicle.
 The major distraction now a days is talking on mobile phone while driving.
 Act of talking on phone occupies major portion of brain and the smaller part
handles the driving skills.
◦ the distractions on road are:

1.Adjusting mirrors while driving

2.Stereo/Radio in vehicle
3.Animals on the road
4.Banners and billboards.
What causes traffic
accidents?
Red Light Jumping
The common conception is that stopping at red signal is wastage of time and fuel.
A red light jumper not only jeopardizes his life but also the safety of other road
users.
This chaos at intersection is the main cause of traffic jams.
 It has also been seen that the red light jumper crosses the intersection with greater
speed to avoid crash and challan but it hampers his ability to judge the ongoing
traffic and quite often crashes.
What causes traffic
accidents?
Avoiding Safety Gears like Seat belts and Helmets.
Use of seat belt in four-wheeler is now mandatory and not wearing seat belt invites
penalty, same in the case of helmets for two wheeler drivers.
Wearing seat belts and helmets doubles the chances of survival in a serious
accident.
Two wheeler deaths have been drastically reduced after use of helmet has been
made mandatory.
Crash Data
What is Crash Data.
Road traffic crash data are useful tools to support the
development, implementation, and assessment of highway
safety programs that tend to reduce road traffic crashes.
Aims at gaining a better understanding of road traffic
operational problems, locating hazardous road sections,
identifying risk factors, developing accurate diagnosis and
remedial measures, and evaluating the effectiveness of road
safety programs.
Why Crash Data is
Important
 The purpose of crash data is to help decision-makers understand the
nature, causes, and injury outcomes of crashes.
Why Crash Data is
Important
Crash data is used to:
Award and target state and National highway safety funding.
Focus on local and state law enforcement efforts
Enforce existing laws to ensure driver/vehicle compliance
(i.e., graduated driving licensing, alcohol, and speeding)
Conduct problem identification and the development of
resolutions for safety programs
Make key legislative decisions that impact citizen safety on
roadways
Why Crash Data is
Important
 Identify high crash locations and make engineering and
construction improvements to roadways
 Educate the public on safety issues (i.e., seat belt use,
aggressive driving, and speeding)
 Improve Emergency Medical Services through processes
such as training EMS personnel or the deployment of EMS
units
Crash Data - Contains
 Identification Number
 Location
 Date and Time
 Severity
 Collision type or manner of collision
 Direction of travel
 Alcohol or drugs
 Vehicle occupants
 Narratives
 Road Crash

Road crashes are Extremely confusing events

How they occurred?
Who (or) What caused them?
Why they occurred?
How they can be prevented?
Road crash investigation is the tool to answer the above questions.
Personal injury, fatality, property damage exceeding 1000 USD requires
on scene investigation.
 NEED FOR ROAD CRASH
INVESTIGATION

It is a corner stone of a
preventable program.

Proper understanding of what

is occurring in road crashes.

Valid education programs,

engineering reforms and
enforcing strategies can be
invoked to reduce the road toll.
STEPS IN ROAD CRASH
INVESTIGATION
 PRELIMINARY AND PREPARATORY
STEPS OF INVESTIGATION
1. INFORMATIONS COLLECTED BEFORE ARRIVAL INTO THE
SCENE:
1. Location
2. Time of notification
3. Who notified the officer and how?
2. General information about seriousness of accidents such as
injuries, Hit and run, Amount of traffic congestion etc.
3. Whether additional aids sent to accident spots such as
Ambulances, additional Police Patrols etc.
 PRELIMINARY AND PREPARATORY
STEPS OF INVESTIGATION
2. LOCATION OF PATROL
VEHICLE IN ACCIDENT SPOT:
1.Should not create congestion.
2.Can be used to Block the road if
required.
3.Can be used to illuminate the scene
during night.
3. CARE FOR INJURED
4. ESTABLISH TRAFFIC
CONTROL
5. REQUEST ADDITIONAL
SUPPORTING SERVICES
 ARRIVAL AT THE SPOT ACTIONS

MOVING THE VICTIM VEHICLE AND

MARKING
1.Vehicle should be immediately
moved out of the scene when
2. Injured person is trapped in the
wreckage and cannot be treated
there.
3.Injured person is trapped near a
burning object of area near to a
potential fire hazard.
4.When final position of vehicle is an
hazard to oncoming vehicles and
traffic control cannot be
established.
 ARRIVAL AT THE SPOT ACTIONS

IDENTIFY AND PRESERVE EVIDENCES:

1.Puddles of Gasoline
2.Blood
3.Pieces of broken glass
4.Position of gear levers, tyres at final position and other interior
objects in the vehicle.
5.Alcoholic beverages and other such objects.
6.Victim’s Mobile phone location after accident.
 OBSERVATION AND RECORDING OF
EVIDENCES
VEHICLE FINAL REST POSITION:
Final rest position of vehicle.
Marks or traces of skid, scrape,
pavement damage, damages to vehicle
and nearby object.
Skid marks are very important since
they show position, direction, speed of
the travel and to determine co-efficient
of friction of the pavement surface.
 OBSERVATION AND RECORDING OF
EVIDENCES

PATH OF VEHICLE AND CONDITION OF ENVIRONMENT:

1.Retrace the path of vehicles involved in accident
2.Visibility conditions of environment
3.Conditions of signs and signals
4.Road surface condition
5.Traffic volume
6.Angle of view
7.Possible distractions
 SKETCHES
Helps to explain accident.
Helps the investigator to reveal the
facts.
Locate any given point at the scene.

STEPS IN PREPARING SKETCH:

1.Geometry of accident site
2.Triangulation of accident site
3.Plotting of final position of vehicle
4.Indicating vehicle marks, scratches,
scrapes and debris in the scene.
 PHOTOGRAPHS

Used to supplement accident investigation

Any persons, materials or marks should not be included in
photographs.
Pictured twice. Vehicles and debris in place and vehicles and
debris removed.
TYPES OF ACCIDENT ANALYSIS PHOTOGRAPHS:
Establishing Photographs.
3600 Photographs.
Damage Photographs.
 ANALYSIS OF ACCIDENT PHOTOGRAPHS

Short accident spots are taken photographs with hand held cameras.
Long accident spots in highway may have skid marks upto 200m. Certain police
departments use RC helicopters to capture the scene.
ANALYSIS SOFTWARE FOR ACCIDENT SCENES : ELCOVISION
ADVANTAGES:
•Image recognition and image processing.
•Reseau Analysis.
•Digital rectification.
•Automatic image measurement.
•Multiple photo orientation.
•3D plane generation
•CAD plugins
ANALYSIS OF ACCIDENT PHOTOGRAPHS
 INSPECTION OF VEHICLES

Vehicle body condition

Tire and rim condition
Light condition
Glass condition
Interior vehicle equipments
 SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR
ALCOHOLS AND INTOXICANTS
Detection of odours of intoxicants
or other unusual odours.

Observation of individual's
actions.

Search of the vehicle with

permission of driver.

Search with a search warrant,

based on probable cause.
Counter Measures
 Counter Measures
Safety performance indicators
POLICY AND
ORGANIZATIONAL
CHANGES
An effective national policy, according to the World Health Organization
should address all “five pillars” of traffic safety
Road safety management,
Safer roads and mobility,
Safer vehicles,
Safer road users, and
Effective post-crash response
Setting highway safety goals
In the context of highway safety, a commitment to a concrete
and measurable goal sets in motion several different actions including:
(1)the formulation of a comprehensive safety policy, program, and
procedures to achieve the program,
(2)Coordination among agencies,
(3)allocation of funds,
(4)creation of incentive for creative thinking to examine new
approaches, and
(5)evaluation research to track advancements in safety.
Counter Measures
Providing or placing Hardware, such as
• barriers,
• sign supports, and
• work zone devices

are commonly used to reduce the potential severity of crashes on the

roadside.
Crash testing is used to evaluate the crashworthiness of these devices