Tackling Accident Blackspots Head On

A blackspot, in South Australia, is considered to be a location where at least three casualty accidents have been reported over a five year period. Similar criteria are used to identify blackspots in other developed jurisdictions. Such a small number of accidents is inherently highly variable, and the selection of sites by this means will give different results from one time period to another. Blackspot programs have produced positive safety benefits over many years and are consequently believed to be highly cost-effective. This paper describes the approach to blackspots and investigates whether even better results can be obtained by a procedure that is less dependent on the number of crashes.