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This document is intended to help identify sign sheeting materials for rigid signs and their common specification designations. It is not a qualified product list. FHWA does not endorse or approve sign sheeting materials. Many other sheeting materials not listed here are available for delineation and construction/work zone uses.

Providing drivers with a clear view of the curve prior to curve entry allows drivers to decrease their speed before entering the curve. Providing a clear view represents one of the most economical solutions to keep vehicles in the traveled lane

Highway safety is the primary reason for a highway agency's becoming involved with mailboxes, which, in some areas, are often the only fixed objects close to the road.

A Guide for Maintaining Pedestrian Facilities for Enhanced Safety provides guidance for maintaining pedestrian facilities with the primary goal of increasing safety and mobility. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) developed the Guide as one of several means of reducing the approximately 4,000 pedestrian fatalities and tens of thousands of pedestrian injuries occurring in the United States annually. This Guide is based on a research report completed as a part of developing the guide.

Describes FTA’s Public Transportation Agency Safety Plan Final Rule requires federally funded transit agencies in urban areas to create safety plans to evaluate and mitigate safety risks for millions of daily passengers and transit workers. A related final safety training rule will enhance the technical know-how of transit workers with direct safety oversight. With these rules, FTA has completed the framework for the National Public Transportation Safety Program required by Congress.

This guide is designed to be used by anyone looking for ways to improve the safety and comfort of their neighborhood streets, whether they are just beginning to learn about traffic safety or are already part of an established community safety or advocacy group.

The following document summarizes research on pedestrian safety in the United States with a focus on crash characteristics and the safety effects of various roadway features and traffic-control devices; it also considers pedestrian educational and enforcement programs. This pedestrian safety synthesis was part of a large FHWA study ("Evaluation of Pedestrian Facilities") that has generated several other documents on the safety of pedestrian crossings and the effects of innovative engineering treatments on pedestrian safety.

The Tool Kit is designed to teach state and local government officials how to identify and fix problems that prevent people with disabilities from gaining equal access to state and local government programs, services, and activities. It will also teach state and local officials how to conduct accessibility surveys of their buildings and facilities to identify and remove architectural barriers to access.

This primer for highway safety professionals is a reference for integrated and improved pedestrian and bicycle safety, summarizing the most promising infrastructure and behavioral programs addressing specific safety problems and highlighting how to implement these approaches.

A short and humorous publication on best practices for staying away while working an occasional extra shift due to a storm. Preparation is key.

This synthesis compiles information on the state of existing practices regarding the application of pedestrian crossing improvements and does not produce new guidance. The report includes a survey of state departments of transportation (DOTs) and local transportation agencies, a synthesis of current recommended practices.

The purpose of this report is to summarize State DOT practices for delivering safety funding and resources to local entities for road safety improvement projects. These practices were identified in large part through a questionnaire administered to State DOTs during this assessment. This report identifies model local road safety practices that can be implemented by State DOTs, local practitioners (i.e., public works directors, transportation directors, county engineers, transportation planners, and elected officials), Local Technical Assistance Programs (LTAP), and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO) in any State.

Demonstrates how to be safer when operating a backhoe.

Road Safety Audits (RSAs) is a formal safety examination of an existing or future roadway or off-road facility and are conducted by an independent, experienced, multidisciplinary team. The purpose of the Bicycle Road Safety Audit Guidelines and Prompt Lists is to provide transportation agencies and RSA teams with a better understanding of the safety of cyclists in the transportation system when conducting an RSA. These Guidelines present the RSA team with an overview of basic principles of the safety of cyclists and potential issues affecting cyclists. They also provide information on how to conduct an RSA and effectively assess the safety of cyclists. Prompt lists describe safety considerations when conducting a cyclist-specific RSA. These Guidelines will help RSA teams evaluate and suggest a multimodal approach to safety by improving the safety of cyclists and all roadway users.

Section 2A.19 of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) states that “Post mounted sign and object marker supports shall be crashworthy (breakaway, yielding, or shielded with a longitudinal barrier or crash cushion) if within the clear zone.” The clear zone concept is used when working to minimize the number and severity of crashes involving vehicles running off the road. Simply stated, the clear zone is a desirable traversable area that starts at the edge of the traffic lane and extends laterally a sufficient distance to allow a driver to stop or return to the road before encountering a hazard or overturning. Typical desired clear zone dimensions for local roads are 7 feet on roadways without curbs and 1.5 feet for roadways with curbs, though there are many variables involved including design speed, side slope, and average daily traffic.

This fact sheet discusses five methods of assessing the retroreflectivity of traffic signs (their ability to be seen in dark conditions).

The low-volume environment of rural roadways—with rows of crops or stands of trees on either side and seemingly miles of pavement between you and the next car—can give drivers a feeling of safety. Unfortunately, two-lane rural roadways are among the most deadly in the United States. For example, the fatality rate on rural roadways is more than twice that along urban roadways. In 2006, 23,339 people died in rural motor-vehicle crashes—56% of all motor vehicle fatalities.

From 2005 to 2013, CERS was a joint program between CTS and the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, with sponsorship from the Federal Highway Administration, to facilitate research, training, and outreach activities related to rural transportation safety.

The Center is a joint program between the State and Local Policy Program at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs and the Center for Transportation Studies, both at the University of Minnesota and sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration. Congress created the Center in July 2005 as part of a broader, multiyear, multimillion-dollar directive establishing four national centers for surface transportation excellence in the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) transportation funding legislation.

Andover, KS's Traffic Safety Committee gets the right people in the room on a regular basis to talk about traffic safety, with the right data and tools, to develop solutions together.

This TechBrief describes the methodology and results from an open-road study sponsored by FHWA that examined driver yielding behavior at crosswalks with RRFBs positioned above the pedestrian crossing sign and at crosswalks with RRFBs positioned below the sign.

This TechBrief describes the methodology and results from an open-road study sponsored by FHWA that examined driver yielding behavior at crosswalks with three different flash patterns used with yellow, rapid-flashing beacons.

Nearly 6.5 million people work at approximately 252,000 construction sites across the nation on any given day. The fatal injury rate for the construction industry is higher than the national average in this category for all industries.

The purpose of the Countermeasure Service Life Guide is to provide transportation practitioners with the necessary information to make consistent, data-driven decisions for evaluating and prioritizing safety countermeasures using prescribed countermeasure service lives. The target audience includes transportation professionals implementing safety strategies or countermeasures for safety projects or programs. This Guide provides typical service lives for a wide range of safety countermeasures. Further, this guide demonstrates the benefits of standardizing countermeasure service life application throughout an agency. This Guide provides background information on factors that can impact countermeasure service life and analytical considerations when conducting benefit-cost analysis for multiple countermeasures or alternatives with differing service life. Examples demonstrate the application of service life and analytical considerations in various scenarios. A thorough understanding of the time period for which a countermeasure may have a measurable impact is critical to establishing the cost-effectiveness of the countermeasure relative to the installation and ongoing maintenance and operational costs. Reliable and consistent approaches are key to informing decisions and improving safety investments.

The guide is a basic reference to assist State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) in selecting effective, evidence-based countermeasures for traffic safety problem areas. These areas include Alcohol-and Drug-Impaired Driving; Seat Belts and Child Restraints; Speeding and Speed Management; Distracted Driving; Motorcycle Safety; Young Drivers; Pedestrian Safety; Bicycle Safety; and Drowsy Driving.

Data-Driven Safety Analysis is the application of the latest generation of tools for analyzing crash and roadway data. This video gives an overview of this approach, which enables safety professionals to make more informed safety management and project development decisions in order to better target highway safety investments and reduce the number of severe crashes on roadways.

Local road practitioners across the country play a critical role in addressing crash risks at the local level and may be able to identify the specific or unique conditions that contribute to crashes within their jurisdictions. The Local Road Safety Plan (LRSP) offers a foundation for consensus and focus. It defines key emphasis areas and strategies that impact local rural roads and provides a framework to accomplish safety enhancements at the local level. The LRSP helps communities take a proactive stance in reducing and preventing local road fatalities and injuries. This document guides the development of an LRSP.

Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users. The risks to pedestrians crossing at uncontrolled locations are much higher than at signalized intersections. There has been an increasing trend in pedestrian deaths during the past decade. Specifically, pedestrian fatality as a percent of total fatalities indicates an increasing trend in a ten-year period from 2005 to 2014. Several research projects funded by both federal and state transportation agencies have attempted to identify effective strategies for improving pedestrian safety within their jurisdictions. However, very little research was conducted on pedestrian safety at uncontrolled locations in Illinois. The objectives of the project were to identify the best practices of approving pedestrian crossings and pedestrian-crossing treatments at uncontrolled locations and to develop procedures and guidelines to be used by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and local agencies. To achieve the research goal, the team conducted a comprehensive literature review of related studies and existing guidelines, a survey, and interview of Illinois transportation engineers, statistical analysis of Illinois pedestrian-crash data from 2010 to 2014, and a field review of selected high-crash corridors (HCC) in Illinois. This study identified several common issues associated with the high-pedestrian-crash-prone roads, e.g., speeding, poor lighting, noncompliance with posted signage, inadequate or missing signage, or lack of conspicuity. Several geometric features were also proven to be related to pedestrian crashes; for instance, long crossing distances, insufficient sight distance, and inappropriate placement of bus stops and parking were proved to affect pedestrian safety. In addition, pedestrian-crossing treatments were classified into five categories in the study, and their effectiveness and suitable conditions were assessed and identified. Based on the research findings, a guidebook was compiled with a comprehensive discussion of strategies and treatments to enhance pedestrian safety at uncontrolled locations. The target audiences for this guidebook are transportation professionals, highway designers, traffic engineers, law enforcement officers, and safety specialists who may be involved in efforts to reduce pedestrian crashes at uncontrolled locations.

Pavement edge drop-off can be a serious safety concern when a vehicle leaves the paved roadway surface and encounters a significant vertical elevation difference between the paved roadway and adjacent unpaved shoulder. Edge dropoffs are potential safety hazards because significant vertical differences between surfaces can reduce vehicle stability and affect the driver’s ability to control their vehicle when inadvertently leaving the paved driving area. In addition, scrubbing between the pavement edge and ire can result in a loss of control.

FHWA defines a roadway departure (RwD) crash as a crash that occurs after a vehicle crosses an edge line or a centerline, or otherwise leaves the traveled way. Another term our partners often use is lane departure, which is synonymous with RwD, since both include head-on collisions when a vehicle enters an opposing lane of traffic. From 2016 to 2018 an average of 19,158 fatalities resulted from roadway departures, which is 51 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States.

A safety guide on the application of traffic control devices and road management techniques for rural roads owned by local governments.

These printable trading cards are a great way to explain and visualize rural roadway departure crash types, countermeasures, and tools. Print them, collect them, trade them!

This guide assists State or local transportation or traffic safety departments that are considering developing a policy or guide to support the installation of countermeasures at uncontrolled pedestrian crossing locations. This document provides guidance to agencies, including best practices for each step involved in selecting countermeasures. By focusing on uncontrolled crossing locations, agencies can address a significant national safety problem and improve quality of life for pedestrians of all ages and abilities. Agencies may use this guide to develop a customized policy or to supplement existing local decision-making guidelines.

This video explores the issue of a safe placement of trees along our country's roadsides, stressing that the design of highway projects should be a cooperative effort involving the highway agency, concerned communities, organizations, and individual citizens.

This document provides a method for preparing a simple economic analysis of infrastructure projects, helping users to quantify project costs and direct and indirect safety-related benefits of project alternatives. Direct safety benefits include the expected change in crash frequency and severity. Indirect benefits include the operational and environmental benefits that result from reduced crashes (i.e., reduced travel time, improved travel time reliability, reduced fuel use, and reduced emissions).

The Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) Manual provides an overview of the HSIP and outlines procedures and tools to assist transportation professionals with the planning, implementation and evaluation phases of the HSIP. The HSIP Manual was developed based on the latest research, as well as state and local practices, pertaining to roadway safety management processes. Hyperlinks throughout the document connect the user to valuable resources to assist with their decision-making processes.

The Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) is a core Federal-aid highway program with the primary purpose of achieving a significant reduction in fatalities and serious injuries on all public roads. Many states and local agencies are successfully implementing innovative approaches to HSIP planning, implementation, and evaluation. The HSIP Noteworthy Practices Series presents case studies of these successful practices organized by specific HSIP topics, including: HSIP Project Identification; HSIP Project Evaluation; Safety Data Collection, Analysis, and Sharing; SHSP Stakeholder Involvement; Revisiting SHSP Emphasis Areas; and Use of the HSIP Flexible Funding Provision. Each series includes an introduction to the topic and a collection of noteworthy practices, which provide summaries of each practice, key accomplishments, results, and contact information for those interested in learning more

While statistics indicate that 15-passenger vans are more likely to roll over than other passenger vehicles, it is important to remember that these vehicles do not claim more occupant lives than the average vehicle on the road. They are not fundamentally unsafe if operated with care to carry passengers securely.

Pedestrian–vehicle crashes are both common and deadly. The majority of pedestrian fatalities occur outside marked intersection crosswalks. The influences of pedestrian and environmental factors on crossing location choice were examined. A literature review covering factors intrinsic to pedestrians is provided. In addition, pedestrian crossings at 20 different locations were recorded and analyzed. The vast majority of crossings (89 percent of the total observed) took place in the marked intersection crosswalks. Drivers are likely to yield to pedestrians. However, while drivers are more likely to yield to pedestrians in the marked crosswalk, pedestrians and vehicles are equally as likely to yield to one another outside the marked crosswalk. The data also suggest that measures that reduce the perceived affordances to cross the roadway (e.g., flowerbeds that separate the sidewalk from the roadway) also reduce the proportion of crossings outside the marked crosswalks. It also appears that pedestrians cross when perceived control of the crossing is greatest. Measures to increase perceived control have the potential to increase (e.g., visible countdown clocks) or decrease (e.g., large medians) crossings in the marked crosswalk. A model to predict pedestrian crossing location is provided. The model uses various environmental variables as predicting factors and was shown to successfully predict an average of 90 percent of the crossings.

The purpose of Human Factors Guidelines for Road Systems (HFG) is to provide the best factual information and insight on the characteristics of road users to facilitate safe roadway design and operational decisions.

This fact sheet describes how hybrid beacons work and where they are especially effective.

A Safety Management System (SMS) gives decision-makers and those who manage and maintain local roadways the tools to systematically identify, prioritize, correct, and evaluate the performance of their transportation safety investments.

This report provides information on lighting parameters and design criteria that should be considered when installing fixed roadway lighting for midblock crosswalks. The information is based on static and dynamic experiments of driver performance with regard to the detection of pedestrians and surrogates in midblock crosswalks. Experimental condition variables included lamp type (high-pressure sodium and metal halide), vertical illuminance level, the color of pedestrian clothing, the position of the pedestrians and surrogates in the crosswalk, and the presence of glare. Two additional lighting systems, a Problem luminaire, and ground-installed LEDs were also evaluated. The research found that a vertical illuminance of 20 lx in the crosswalk, measured at a height of 1.5 m (5 ft) from the road surface, provided adequate detection distances in most circumstances. Although the research was constrained to midblock placements of crosswalks, the report includes a brief discussion of considerations in lighting crosswalks colocated with intersections.

This study sought to fill this knowledge gap by examining the safety effectiveness of CGT intersections in terms of crash frequency using the propensity scores-potential outcomes framework. A benefit-cost (B/C) analysis compared the safety benefits to the construction costs of a CGT relative to a conventional signalized three-leg intersection.

To achieve their safety goals, many States select intersection safety as an emphasis area as part of their Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP). However, while SHSPs may identify strategies to promote intersection safety, they lack the depth of information needed to establish an action plan for implementing the strategies necessary to achieve the safety goals. This document provides a 10-step process that guides and assists State Safety and Traffic Engineers in identifying the countermeasures, strategies, deployment levels, implementation steps, actions, and costs necessary to achieve the intersection safety goals of the SHSP.

Frequency and severity of intersection conflicts through traffic control and operational improvements.

More than 20 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States occur at intersections and over 80 percent of intersection-related fatalities in rural areas occur at unsignalized intersections. This document provides information on effectively identifying intersection safety issues in local areas, choosing the countermeasures that address them, and evaluating the benefits of those treatments. It is geared toward local road managers and other practitioners with responsibility for operating and maintaining their roads. It offers information on the procedures and processes to improve the safety of local rural unsignalized intersections and to reduce the potential for future crashes.

Several methods have been used to emphasize the presence of a pedestrian crossing, including supplementing signing with beacons or embedded light-emitting diodes. A device that has received national attention is the rectangular rapid-flashing beacon, but practitioners have asked whether the shape of the beacon plays a role in the effectiveness of this device. In the first phase of this project, researchers reviewed recent literature and pedestrian crash data to identify trends in pedestrian safety and in the effectiveness of crossing treatments. Researchers also conducted limited field observations at 10 crosswalks in 5 States, as a source of ideas for evaluating crossings in the second phase of the project.

The objectives of this study included analyzing the center of the lane IRI (CLIRI) and MIRI at the test sections to evaluate changes over time, comparing the change in CLIRI and MIRI at the test sections, and investigating the effect of subgrade and environmental parameters on the increase in CLIRI.