Facing the problems of lack of sufficient accident experience under controlled circumstances to identify the impacts of safety measures, researchers in Canada have turned to assessments of impacts on "intermediate" variables in the chain of accident causation. These include road user attitudes, knowledge, physical condition, self-reported and observed behaviour, and (in some initial experiments) perceived risks. Alternatively, assessments have attempted to use traffic "conflicts" as proxy measures of safety. The paper briefly examines some of these efforts, considering the questions: (1) can the evaluation techniques be improved so that conclusive results can be obtained; and (2) if not, are partial answers useful? (a) for the covering abstract of the conference see IRRD abstract no 264967.
Samenvatting