What effect does a road safety measure have on the number of casualties, what are the costs, and are there any side effects to be mentioned? The Norwegian researchers Rune Elvik and Truls Vaa have tried to answer these elementary questions. They have done this in a handbook of more than 1000 pages. The authors themselves have admitted that "handbook" is not really the right name, because in a handbook you expect to find instructions or advices about how to draw up and implement the best road safety measures. The authors admit that an encyclopaedia or catalogue is a more accurate name. The book consists of four parts: I Introduction, II General-Purpose Policy Instruments, III Specific Traffic Safety Measures, and IV Vocabulary and Index. The core of the book is part III that describes 124 road safety measures in a structured way. A picture evolves of the effectiveness of a measure and an attempt is made to estimate side effects (on mobility and the environment) and costs, and to conduct a cost-benefit analysis. The amount of attention paid to each measure is partly dependant on its popularity and the amount it has been researched. (Author/publisher)
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