In the European Union, in the year 2000, some 40,000 people died as a result of road accidents. Since 2004, after the enlargement of the EU this number is likely to increase considerably. As will be discussed in this paper, some 60 percent of the fatalities occur on non-urban roads. If motorway fatalities are added, this percentage reaches an average of 67 percent for 24 motorized countries, mostly from the EU. This seems to indicate that the safety situation of non-urban roads leaves much to be desired and ways to improve road safety on such roads need to be explored.e safety measures are generally cost intensive and ways should therefore be found to find the most cost-effective measures from among the many possible countermeasures. Over the past few years much progress has been made in the field of cost-benefit evaluation of safety measures. This paper will cover four main issues. First, the rural road safety situation and its trends over the past four decades will be briefly dealt with. Second, a number of the main issues that could contribute significantly to safer rural roads are presented and discussed. Third, the main requirements for a scientific evaluation of countermeasures to improve rural road safety will be discussed and considered in a cost-benefit framework which will also discuss the many issues related to obtain proper inputs to the evaluation. For the covering abstract see ITRD E136183.
Samenvatting