Curing curves and clearzones on rural roads

The New South Wales Centre for Road Safety, Safer Roads Branch has developed alternative design principles and incremental clearzone widths that address the lack of design direction when confronted with what is regarded as acceptable practice on upgrading existing roads. The major aim of these principles is to reduce crashes and their severity yet achieve maximum impact by focusing limited road safety and road maintenance funding on those sections of rural road that have the most serious off road crashes. They also have the extra benefit of curbing the cost of brownfield maintenance and reconstruction projects by restricting the design parameters to a practical level of maximum benefit for a minimum construction cost. Cost effective engineering initiatives such as asymmetrical design principles and incremental clearzones allow a better opportunity for recovery by errant vehicles and will help road authorities to provide a safer roadside environment along their network and is also seen as a practical and economical alternative in applying road safety engineering to existing two lane rural roads. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E217225.