Selected aspects of road safety in polish road design practice

The road safety situation is very similar in Central and Eastern European Countries. All these countries have faced an important or even dramatic deterioration in road safety level in recent years. The transition to a free market economy has caused certain road safety problems in terms of road users and the roads, as well as vehicles. The classification of accident causes differs from country to country. As for Poland, almost all traffic safety indicators are located here in one of the last positions in Europe with mortality of traffic accident victims at the level of 14%, while the average in the European Union is about 3.4%. It is not possible to state precisely what the reasons for the trend are in terms of higher fatality figures, but undoubtedly, there are two types of reasons: (1) social explanations; and (2) traffic system explanations related to the increasing traffic volume, maintenance of road and vehicles, and traffic regulations. An important group of effective measures related to the second mentioned reason is found in the field of infrastructure and the road design process. Some considerations on road design standards used in Poland, especially in safety aspects, are undertaken. Research results obtained at the Gdansk Technical University show that there is a need to modify design practice in terms of modernization of cross section of many two-lane roads, signing of horizontal curves and a correct selection of geometrical elements of the horizontal alignment.