Retro-fitting incremental clearzone widths to existing rural roads

The aim of this paper is to outline new alternative and pragmatic incremental clearzone widths that when retrofitted to existing high speed, undivided rural roads are expected to have a significant effect on reducing the road toll. It concentrates on reducing the severity of run off road crashes into objects as the major concern and not the total elimination of these types of crashes. It tries to achieve this by restricting the design parameters to a practical level of maximum safety benefit return for the minimum cost of construction. This study is consistent with the safe systems approach to road safety which accepts that humans will make mistakes and that the road should be constructed and maintained to ensure these errors don't result in death or serious injury. Cost effective treatments such as applying incremental clearzones are expected to provide good safety benefits yet be less environmentally destructive than current Greenfield clearzone standards. If they are implemented throughout the NSW road network they will provide a more forgiving roadside environment than presently exists along the edge of most rural roads. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E216178.