Temporary road hazards can result from a variety of causes: traffic accidents, driver surveys, police checks, for example, but most importantly, road works. Highway construction and maintenance areas provide one of the greatest challenges for those responsible for traffic control and the paper examines temporary hazards from that major view point. There is a developing international emphasis on the improvement of traffic control at road works, to a considerable extent encouraged by the increasing possibility of litigation against Authorities whose practices are alleged to be below the required standard. The paper examines the nature of the road work accident problem in Australia and concludes that such accidents form a very small part, of the overall accident scene and appear to form a subset of the general accident population, their characteristics being determined more by the location, time and type of road works in operations rather than by any reality identifiable failing in current management practices. The paper concludes, however, by drawing attention to possible areas of work site traffic management most likely to benefit from further consideration in Australia, namely: personnel motivation and training, rationalisation and uniformity of practice, and control of vehicle speeds within the vicinity of road works. (A)
Abstract