The level of road safety is determined largely by the features and layout of the highway infrastructure. Proper road design can limit the human errors that result in accidents. Indeed, it has been estimated that improvements in roadway engineering have been a primary factor contributing to the recent reduction in highway casualties in countries of the European Union. Standards play a vital role in highway design, yet the knowledge needed to support the development of such standards is lacking in many respects. The SAFESTAR (Safety Standards for Road Design and Redesign) research study was undertaken to fill some of these knowledge gaps. SAFESTAR was a cooperative effort among nine institutes representing eight countries: the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Portugal, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The study was focused on traffic safety for the trans-European roadway network that links the major European centers. Particular emphasis was on the following topics: emergency lanes and shoulders along motorways; tunnels located on motorways; express roads; cross sections of rural roads; curves in rural roads; major junctions on roads in urban areas; road safety audits. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting