During the period 1997/98, an OECD Scientific Expert Group produced a report about road safety on rural non-motorways and the possibilities of improvement. This report attempted to approach the problem as broadly as possible, in order to enable all the (very divergent) OECD member states to apply it. The Transport Research Centre of the Netherlands Ministry of Transport commissioned SWOV to produce this report as a) a summary of the most important results in this OECD report, and b) translate these results and recommendations for use on Dutch roads. Relevant developments in the Netherlands had to be taken into account. The OECD report itself presents an overview of the safety, in various countries, of rural non-motorways, the accident characteristics, and their possible causes. The usefulness and necessity of a strategic approach to improve safety is then considered. Various measures, fitting within such an approach, are discussed. These are: network planning, infrastructural measures, compliance control, intelligent traffic and transport systems, and trauma management. The possible causes are given of the three most common types of accidents on Dutch rural non-motorways: single-vehicle accidents, crossroads, and head-on collisions. From these, the measures were deduced for improving the situation. These measures involve enforcement and education, infrastructure, and the new intelligent information technology. Such measures can be applied in, respectively, the short term, the short-to-middle term, and the middle-to-long term. The expectations are that, with further elaboration and implementation of the principles of the "sustainably safe" concept, the safety of rural non-motorways will improve. Of utmost importance here is the redivision of the road network in three mono-functional categories. These are through-roads, residential roads, and collector roads. Equally essential is a consistent road design around each ascribed function. For the abstract of the OECD report see C 12199 S (ITRD 491006).
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