Search >>

(tips)
Advanced Search

Information >>

• 
  Strategic Highway Safety Plan
• Six Elements of the Plan
• Download the SHSP
• 
  Tools for Life
• Implementation Guides (NCHRP Report 500)
• Appendixes and Guides Map
• Integrated Management Process to Reduce Highway Injuries and Fatalities Statewide (NCHRP Report 501)

A united effort by state and federal agencies to save more lives.

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
444 N Capitol St NW
Suite 249
Washington DC, 20001


Governors Highway Safety Association

Federal Highway Administration

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Transportation Research Board of The National Academies

National Cooperative Highway Research Program

« Back to other goals

Goal 16 - Minimizing the Consequences of Leaving the Road
One-third of all fatalities result from vehicles leaving the road and hitting some fixed object or overturning. In addition to strategies designed to reduce the number of vehicles leaving the roadway, efforts to minimize the consequences when that happens can also reduce injuries and fatalities. Leaving the roadway in rural areas is especially threatening to life and limb, as two-thirds of fatalities registered in rural settings result from this event.

In addition to keeping vehicles on the roadway, it is important that we reduce the opportunity for vehicles to overturn or strike fixed objects when they stray and minimize injuries when they crash with a fixed object.

Recommended Strategies:

• Strategy 16A: Provide improved practices for the selection, installation, and maintenance of upgraded roadside safety hardware
• Strategy 16B: Implement in an environmentally acceptable manner a national effort to address hazardous trees
• Strategy 16C: Implement a national policy to reduce the hazard from roadside utility poles, particularly on two-lane rural roads
• Strategy 16D: Develop and implement guidance to improve ditches and backslopes to minimize rollover potential

  Crashes involving non-traversable ditches and backslopes account for a significant number of highway deaths due to rollovers or sudden impacts. This initiative will use available research and possibly perform some original research to fill in significant gaps and to develop guidelines for roadside slope improvement. It also will include guidance for selecting priority sites. With proper funding targeted to high priority roadside improvements, this strategy will yield very cost effective, long-term improvements.

  Related Publications:
  

  -- Determination of Safe/Cost Effective Roadside Slopes and Associated Clear Distances
  

• Strategy 16E: Develop and implement guidelines for safe urban streetscape design