Improving Safety on Rural Local and Tribal Roads – Site Safety Analysis – User Guide #1

2.0 User Guide #1 Scenario

This scenario is set in a rural environment. There are approximately 50 miles of asphalt and gravel roads under the agency’s jurisdiction. Community residents have recently voiced concerns about safety at a particular curve in the community (see Figure 2). Residents have complained that travel speeds around the curve are too high, and there are many near misses on the curve. Residents have brought their complaints to community leaders at the agency by speaking at public meetings and calling local officials.

Figure 2. Scenario Preselected Site

In response to the public concerns, community leaders have asked the manager of the Public Works department to study the location and identify what can be done to reduce public concerns and address any safety issues that may be present.

The Public Works department in this scenario has limited resources. While department staff have ample experience maintaining and operating roadways in the community, there is not a separate roadway or traffic engineering department. The police have the crash record files, but staff have not been maintaining any type of annual summary of crashes by location or type. Traffic volume and roadway characteristics data is available for locations where there have been recent road construction projects; however, the agency does not have an annual program to conduct traffic volume counts at locations throughout the community. As such, there is no historic traffic volume data for this site.

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