EMERGING ROADSIDE SAFETY ISSUES

Efforts to improve roadside safety have had a dramatic effect on the number of fatalities resulting from automobile accidents during the past 30 years. The 1966 annual traffic fatality rate of 5.5 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled dropped to 1.7 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 1993. This was achieved through a dedicated effort by every segment of the highway transportation industry, including the roadside design community. The Federal Highway Administration, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Transportation Research Board, the states, and others have undertaken a variety of research activities to improve roadside safety. These activities include analyzing accident trends, formulating improved analysis procedures, developing new hardware, and promoting a sounder base of accident information. To further improve roadside safety all these efforts should be continued, but attention should also be devoted to a number of emerging issues, including better understanding of crash characteristics, accommodating a continually changing vehicle fleet, analyzing crash potential, selecting effective safety treatments, and making use of new technologies. Following comments on each of these emerging issues, this article presents a table containing a list of roadside safety research issues and, for each issue, research questions that need to be addressed.