United States Department of Transportation
i
A study to mitigate rural high-speed horizontal curve crashes in Kansas.
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2015-05-01
[PDF-2.05 MB]
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Abstract:Driving on horizontal curves is a more complicated task than on straight sections of a roadway, and poses more
workload on drivers as well. While a small portion of roadways are made up of horizontal curve sections,
approximately a quarter of all fatal crashes on highways occur at horizontal curve sections. Thus, studying the crashes
at horizontal curves and the safety improvement at these sections is one of the most interesting topics in the
transportation safety field. Safety improvement of horizontal curve sections of rural transportation networks can
effectively and considerably contribute to crash severity and frequency reduction. Low-cost countermeasures to
improve traffic safety of horizontal curve sections and their effectiveness were discussed.
A Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) crash database of nine years (from 2004 to 2012) was used
and counties with high number of crashes were selected. Eleven counties with high number of horizontal curve related
crashes were selected, and implemented countermeasures at the selected curves were investigated and discussed. K-5
highway is one of the highways with high number of crashes in which the speed limit of a long distance of the
roadway, including the problematic curves, reduced in June 2009 from 55 miles per hour (mph) to 50 mph. The effect
of this speed limit reduction on crash occurrences of seven years, including 3.5 years before and 3.5 years after the
speed limit reduction, was investigated using a statistical t-test method. In addition, various countermeasures to
improve the traffic safety of these horizontal curves were discussed.
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