Safety Evaluation of the Safety Edge Treatment [Final Report]

Details

• Creators:
  Graham, J. L. ; Richard, K. R. ; O'Laughlin, M. K. ; Harwood, D. W.
• Corporate Creators:
  MRIGlobal (Firm)
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Safety Research and Development
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Accident analysis
  • Ran off road accidents
  • Before and after studies
  • Rural highways
  • Two lane highways
  • Paving
  • Collision avoidance systems
  • Benefit cost analysis
  • Dropoffs (Pavements)
  • Multilane highways
  More +
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-HRT-11-024, 110495.1.001,
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States ; Florida ; Iowa ; North Carolina ; Pennsylvania
• TRIS Online Accession Number:
  01343103
• Edition:
  Final Report
• Contracting Officer:
  Carol Tan
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Research and Development
• Abstract:
  Between periods of maintenance, pavement-edge drop-offs can form along the edge of highways. When a driver runs off the roadway, such drop-offs can hinder reentry and may lead to driver overcorrection, loss of control, or overturning on the roadway or roadside. The safety edge is a treatment that is implemented in conjunction with pavement resurfacing and is intended to help minimize drop-off-related crashes. This report examines the safety effects, costs, and benefits of this low-cost treatment for two-lane and multilane rural highways. The safety research was conducted as an observational before-after evaluation of treated sites using the empirical Bayes method. The economic appraisal consisted of a benefit-cost analysis. The safety evaluation found that the safety edge treatment appears to have a small positive crash reduction effect. The best effectiveness measure for the safety edge treatment was a 5.7 percent reduction in total crashes on rural two-lane highways. However, this result was not statistically significant. The economic analysis showed that the treatment is very inexpensive and that its application is highly cost-effective for a broad range of conditions on two-lane highways. Inconsistent results were found for rural multilane highways due to a small data sample.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  DTFH61-06-C-00013
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/37856/dot_37856_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.30 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:fcc44053fbe17aa7fa593bb896798d7040fa4d9c987edf2f159aafe204012ad6