Highway Safety Improvement Program Local Project Selection Guidance

Abstract

The vast majority of crashes involve driver error due to confusion or inattention to traffic and road conditions. However, conditions in the roadway environment often contribute to recurrent crashes that in other situations may not have a negative effect on safety and the causes are sometimes not easy to isolate. Without analysis of the specific situation, the correct set of countermeasures may not be readily apparent. The best practice is to begin all safety evaluations without a preconceived selection of the countermeasure. For high crash locations, a review of the pattern of crashes is most often vital to determining the appropriate set of countermeasures. If review of appropriate data indicates a repeating pattern of crashes at disparate locations or a type of location is encountering high risk of future severe crashes, it may be appropriate to deploy a low cost crash countermeasure systematically over a wide area or corridor. It is required that selection of countermeasures for an HSIP funded high crash location project employ a review procedure modeled on the RSA process to evaluate conditions and crash history by an interdisciplinary team involving interests including engineering and emergency responders along with parties representing road and/or adjacent land users.