The Traffic Safety Toolbox

TRB Special Report 289: Building the Road Safety Profession in the Public Sector examines the growing need for experts at all levels of government to develop and implement systems- and science-based approaches to road safety management. According to the committee that authored the report, the lack of professional recognition and comprehensive road safety education and training opportunities is threatening the ability of public agencies to build the knowledgeable and skilled road safety workforce that is needed to make safety advances. To address this need, the report recommends that the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the Governors Highway Safety Association forge a broad-based alliance of public, private, and educational organizations to champion the road safety profession. The report recommends that the alliance encourage states to take advantage of federal workforce training funds for the purpose of developing road safety professionals and to advocate comprehensive road safety education and training by universities, including the many publicly funded transportation and safety research centers. In addition, the report urges the alliance to explore the creation of one or more specialized institutes to provide comprehensive instruction and training for road safety professionals.

The tool kit will vary among jurisdictions depending on basic legal constraints, community attitudes, road system and traffic characteristics, and resources. The Transportation Research Board (TRB) undertook a study to identify the sources of safety improvements in other countries. Researchers do not have a complete understanding of the underlying causes of long-term trends in crashes and fatalities. Differences among countries are in part attributable to factors other than government safety policies. To identify keys to success, the TRB study committee examined specific safety programs for which quantitative evaluations are available and relied on the observations of safety professionals with international experience. The committee's conclusions identify differences between U.S. and international practices that can account for some differences in outcomes. The committee recommendations, which are addressed to elected officials and to government safety administrators, identify actions needed in the United States to emulate the successes that other countries have achieved. The recommendations do not comprehensively address all aspects of traffic safety programs but rather address areas of practice that are highlighted by the international comparisons and for which credible evidence of effectiveness is available."--Pub. desc.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 336: Road Safety Audits examines the state of the practice of road safety audit (RSA) and road safety audit review applications for U.S. states and Canadian provinces. This synthesis also reviews international RSA practices. RSAs were first introduced in the United Kingdom more than 20 years ago and have been applied in New Zealand and Australia since the 1990s.

Following an in-depth review of the characteristics of road crashes in rural areas, the book proposes a series of safety measures, focusing on infrastructure management, enforcement, innovative tools, such as intelligent transport systems, and trauma management.

This comprehensive 2nd edition covers the key issues that relate human behavior to traffic safety. In particular it covers the increasing roles that pedestrians and cyclists have in the traffic system; the role of infotainment in driver distraction; and the increasing role of driver assistance systems in changing the driver-vehicle interaction.

"The Highway Safety Manual (HSM) is a resource that provides safety knowledge and tools in a useful form to facilitate improved decision making based on safety performance. The focus of the HSM is to provide quantitative information for decision making. The HSM assembles currently available information and methodologies on measuring, estimating and evaluating roadways in terms of crash frequency (number of crashes per year) and crash severity (level of injuries due to crashes). The HSM presents tools and methodologies for consideration of 'safety' across the range of highway activities: planning, programming, project development, construction, operations, and maintenance. The purpose of this is to convey present knowledge regarding highway safety information for use by a broad array of transportation professionals"--p. xxiii, vol. 1.