Road authorities in most countries around the world with advanced legal cultures, are exposed to some form of legal liability for the planning, design, construction and maintenance of their road networks. Whilst advancements in technology and processes can help us reach our goal towards a `perfect' world/environment, until `then', we can only strive to improve. Road safety audits have the potential to reduce accident occurrence and its associated costs and trauma by implementing quality assurance techniques to remove or rectify road safety hazards. Road safety audits are pro-active and involve an assessment of a road project by an independent expert. The additional benefit is that road safety audits can assist road authorities in lessening their exposure to legal liability, improve the road networks they manage and produce an overall improvement to the existing quality of their networks. It should also be noted that this paper reviews the legal position in Australia, but makes reference to some case studies from the United Kingdom. (A)
Abstract