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How do highway engineers decide which road safety problems deserve attention first?

Clearly, data are needed to provide an objective basis for placing all roadway trouble spots or hazardous conditions in some priority order. Below is the general process by which highway engineers conduct highway safety improvements. You need not learn all the details, but an appreciation for this process will help you understand the way they set priorities and to work effectively with them.

What highway engineers do

The pages that follow will show you how the highway engineers prioritize road safety needs. For more complete information on conducting a highway safety study see Local Highway Safety Studies User's Guide available from the National Highway Institute, FHWA. Additional information is also contained in the appendix.They typically follow the series of steps shown below.

1. Identify hazardous location(s) and conditions. With the information you have collected in your Road Problem Checklist, you can assist your community's transportation professional in identifying hazardous locations.

2. Conduct a highway safety study. Once a particular hazardous location or condition has been identified, a highway safety study is conducted. Supporting the completion of a safety study by your local highway engineer is one of the best ways to ensure your trouble spot or hazardous condition will be selected for attention. Here are the general steps in conducting a highway safety study that highway engineers follow:

   • Collect and analyze preliminary data. The type of data available on your trouble spot will be dependent on the record keeping practices of local and state agencies. Primary data types include police accident records, complaint files, and maintenance records. For more complete information on conducting a highway safety study see Local Highway Safety Studies User's Guide available from the National Highway Institute, FHWA. Additional information is also contained in the appendix.
   • Identify and collect field data. An initial visit may be made to the trouble spot to identify possible safety deficiencies.
   • Select and conduct appropriate detailed studies. Highway professionals can conduct a range of studies depending on the type(s) of problems encountered. Some of the types of technical studies include traffic volume, sight distance, roadway and intersection capacity, and speed of police and emergency services response to traffic incidents and response time to clear hazardous operating conditions such as snow or ice.
   • Evaluate study results. The data from the site are analyzed and evaluated to identify safety deficiencies. Results of the studies and field review activities are then integrated.
   • Determine safety and operational deficiencies. This step determines if the results of the studies support or eliminate any of the possible safety deficiencies. A list of probable causes or safety deficiencies is developed that will be used to identify appropriate countermeasures.
     
   • Identify potential safety and operational improvement. The purpose of this step is to develop candidate solutions to the safety deficiencies that are verified. See Appendix for a chart of possible solutions to specific problems and types of crashes.
   • Select appropriate improvements. Decisions on the most appropriate countermeasures must be made recognizing the many fiscal and political constraints within a community. Chapter 2 provides examples of countermeasures to address nine potentially hazardous roadway conditions described in this chapter.
   
   
3. Establish priorities for project or policy implementation. This is the step in the overall process where the engineers juggle budget and other factors in order to determine which of many projects to implement first. In the real world where there may be dozens of important and worthy safety-related road projects, priority choices must be made. Those projects that address a well-documented need and have strong citizen support stand the best chance to be implemented sooner rather than later.
4. Schedule and implement safety projects. As in the step above, it pays to keep informed and stay involved with the process. It takes a lot of work and people to get from a project plan to actual workers working on the roadway or retraining workers in highway operations and maintenance. Be supportive and positive with the contacts you have made to see that your priority project stays on track
   
5. Evaluate safety improvements. Once the asphalt is laid, the guardrail fixed, or the snow removal strategy refined, there is still work for you to do! Chances are that the roadway problem you identified has been fixed, but only time will tell. Over the next several years the roadway professionals will be evaluating the safety improvements they have made to determine if the problem has been solved. So should you as you drive through that former trouble spot. Keep in mind what made you take action on the trouble spot originally. Was it crashes, traffic tie-ups, driver behavior, or something else? Has there been a recurrence of hazardous operating conditions? Have there been improvements? If not, now you know who to call!

The community leader can play an important role in the last three steps of the Highway Safety Study Process. By working constructively with the highway engineers, other road professionals, and government leaders, you can influence the attention given to your road problem and make it a higher priority.

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