Safety Schemes
To reduce the number of road casualties and collisions by adopting the safe system approach, in that the system should be forgiving and any crashes should not result in death or serious injury.
Creating a safe system depends heavily on understanding and implementing these guiding principles:
- The limits of human performance: we all make mistakes and we all need to acknowledge the limits of our capabilities.
- The physical limits of human tolerance to violent forces: we are physically vulnerable when involved in a traffic crash.
- Shared responsibility: this means all of us take an individual and shared role in road safety.
- A forgiving road system: so that when crashes do happen, deaths can be avoided and injuries minimized.
Having selected an appropriate remedial measure or package of measures the next stage is the detailed design and implementation of those proposals. A Safety Scheme may involve something simple like adding a new sign or road marking, or more complex remedial measures such as changing the layout or geometry of the road. Works can be implemented at single sites, such as a junction improvement scheme, along routes such as a revised speed limit or over an area such as a traffic calming scheme in a residential area.