Take Action Before a Crash Occurs: Use a Systemic Approach to Safety

Details

• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Safety
• Contributors:
  Roche, Jerry ; McFadden, John
• Corporate Contributors:
  Federal Highway Administration Resource Center (U.S.)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Traffic safety
  • Crashes
  • Countermeasures
  • Improvements
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA-SA-17-010
• Resource Type:
  Brief
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Highway Administration. Office of Safety
• Abstract:
  Have you ever known of a road segment that warranted improvement but lacked the requisite crash history to acquire funding for needed countermeasures? By using the systemic safety approach, agencies can identify, estimate, and plan for current and future safety concerns without relying on location-specific crash data. This approach allows managers to effectively plan safety improvements and allocate resources proactively rather than waiting for crashes to occur and then reactively responding to public calls for action. Since severe crashes are random events that rarely occur in the same location twice, it is difficult to predict where the next one will occur. While severe crashes may occur at random locations, severe crash types are predictable, as can be seen in Figure 1. This figures illustrates that the number and location of fatal crashes changes from year to year, while the circumstances that most commonly contribute to severe traffic crashes are consistent over time.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/50481/dot_50481_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 4.10 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Federal Highway Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
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