Road Safety Audit is systematic accident prevention and is a systematic and independent assessment of the safety aspects of roads and road schemes. Its purpose is to make new and reconstructed roads as safe as possible, before construction is started and before accidents occur. It is a matter of systematically applying the present expertise in road safety to new projects, regardless of whether they are new installations, reconstructions or operating and maintenance activities. The method used by a traffic safety auditor is described in The Road Safety Audit Manual. There is however no single detailed description or policy in the organisation of the Road Directorate on how a road safety audit is conducted on existing roads. Consequently, in October 2000, the Danish Road Directorate launched the project "Road Safety Audit of Existing Roads" with the clear goal, over a number of years, of raising the level of safety on the existing roads. Such an audit is to be seen as a supplement (not an alternative) to other safety measures on existing roads, for example the elimination of black spots. The project concerns a road safety audit of a road section in Denmark of approx 35 km on the island Lolland. The stretch of road was chosen so as to represent different types of roads, meaning that the 35 km consist of part motorway, part expressway, part highway through small villages along the highway. (A) For the covering abstract of the conference see ITRD no 207828. The reprints are also available at the web - http://www.vti.se/pdf/reports/K18APart1.pdf; http://www.vti.se/pdf/reports/K18APart2.pdf and http://www.vti.se/pdf/reports/K18APart3.pdf.
Abstract