Advancing implementation of proven safety countermeasures and the safe system approach

Abstract

The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has identified 28 Proven Safety Countermeasures (PSCs) to reduce fatal and serious injury crashes on roads in the United States. The PSCs are proven to be effective through sound research and are designed to improve safety for all users and all kinds of roads ‒ from rural to urban, from high-volume freeways to less traveled two-lane roads, from signalized crossings to horizontal curves, and everything in between. The PSCs can support agencies with implementation of the Safe System Approach (SSA), which seeks to build and reinforce multiple layers of protection to both prevent crashes from happening and minimize the harm caused to those involved when crashes do occur. To assist agencies with implementation of the PSCs and SSA, FHWA has developed several resources for measuring SSA alignment – the Safe System Roadway Design Hierarchy, Safe System Project-based Alignment framework, and the Safe System Policy-based Alignment framework. These tools characterize engineering and infrastructure-based countermeasures and strategies relative to their alignment with the SSA, and can be used to assess existing conditions and identify potential improvements through a Safe System lens using quantitative (crash exposure, likelihood, severity) and qualitative (safety prompts) evaluations of a location. Zero is our goal – a Safe System is how we get there!