Local highway departments face the challenge of improving safety and managing liability with small budgets and little expertise. While the safety of freeways and arterials has received a lot of attention, less effort has been focused on local roads and collectors, although they have the highest crash rates. In 1996, the average crash rate for state highways in New York State was 0.93 crashes per million vehicle-miles. For local roads, it was 2.39 crashes per million vehicle-miles. The Cornell Local Roads Program developed a one-day class, Road Safety Fundamentals, to fill the need for basic highway safety knowledge among local highway superintendents. This paper covers the class development, and its place within the context of the services offered by the Program. The demographics and needs of the target audience, and their reactions to the class, are discussed.
Samenvatting