Improving Roadside Safety: Summary Report

This report presents road safety engineering practitioners in Australia and New Zealand with updated advice on hazard management, treatment selection and barrier placement in a Safe System context. Roadside hazards pose a major risk to the occupants of vehicles which run off the road. This project investigated the effectiveness of safety barrier selection and placement, providing more forgiving roadside structures (such as frangible poles) or protecting errant vehicles against impacts with them (clear zones). It also investigated the retrofitting of safety barriers to improve motorcyclist safety. The key outcome of the project is a proposed roadside safety management framework focussing on minimising fatal and serious injuries arising from run-off-road crashes.