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https://www.roadwaysafety.org/programs/roadway-safety-guide
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This Guide is designed to provide community leaders and local elected officials with basic information to improve roadway safety in their communities. It is intended to be a hands-on, user-friendly document, providing you with:
• Strategies you can use to begin making roads, roadsides, and bridges safer.
• Basic information needed to work with state and local transportation departments, highway engineers, highway safety officials, civic groups, and other safety advocates.
• Clear descriptions of key funding and decision-making processes that affect roadway safety.
Preface
A lot has changed since the Roadway Safety Foundation first published its Roadway Safety Guide in 2000. Technology has improved, various studies have helped refine our selection and construction of roadway safety features, and a reduction in overall highway deaths in recent years has been recorded.
Sadly, though, a lot hasn’t changed. Traffic crashes continue to be the leading killer of Americans ages 3-34, hitting the teenage demographic particularly hard.1 The proliferation of increasingly sophisticated mobile phones has given new meaning to the idea of “distracted driving.” And, despite some overall positive trends in road user behavior and vehicle safety, studies have shown that deficiencies in roadway safety – the physical characteristics of roads themselves – contribute to more than half of the country’s traffic fatalities each year. As an organization dedicated to reducing motor vehicle deaths by promoting engineering
improvements, we are naturally most troubled by this last point.
However, there is reason for cautious optimism.
In the 13 years since the Roadway Safety Guide was first published, numerous engineering treatments like modern roundabouts and median barriers have been devised or refined, with years of safety research now supporting their implementation. The Federal Highway Administration has been busy promoting crash countermeasures proven to save lives. In addition, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has also released its long-awaited Highway Safety Manual, a landmark document that provides tools for predicting and analyzing the safety impact of roadway projects. READ MORE