New Guide Offers 'How To' Advice for Making Highways and Bridges Safer

            The Roadway Safety Foundation Aims to Reduce the Over
            15,000 U.S. Deaths Annually Attributable to Bad Roads

    WASHINGTON, April 24 Safety
experts agree that poor road conditions and obsolete designs contribute to
more than 15,000 highway deaths annually -- nearly a third of all fatal
crashes, according to the Roadway Safety Foundation, a nonprofit educational
organization.  And unlike other areas of highway safety -- such as driver
behavior and vehicle design -- where significant gains have been made, RSF
reports that fatalities related to roadside hazards and run-off-the-road
crashes are up 9 percent since 1975.

    To combat this alarming trend, RSF -- in partnership with the U.S.
Department of Transportation's Federal Highway Administration -- is unveiling
a new Roadway Safety Guide designed to provide local elected officials and
other community leaders with basic information to improve roadway safety in
their community.  Written for non-engineers, the guide is a hands-on, easy-to-
use introduction to both common roadway hazards and the often simple, cost-
effective steps that communities can take to make their highways and bridges
safer.  The RSF guide is available on-line at http://www.roadwaysafety.org .

    "All of us want safer roads," remarked Tom Chaffin, vice president of 3M's
Traffic Control Materials Division and chairman of RSF's Board of Trustees.
"But community leaders and concerned motorists may not be entirely certain
what kind of highway problems they are confronting, what can reasonably be
done about them, whose job it is to fix these hazards, and how to pay for
needed safety improvements.  This guide is designed to help answer those
questions."

    The RSF guide urges community leaders to focus on reducing deaths related
to run-off-the-road crashes.  According to the U.S. Department of
Transportation, more than 12,000 people die each year in collisions with
roadside hazards such as trees, utility poles, and embankments, and almost
another 3,500 die in rollover crashes, usually related to veering off the
roadway.  These types of crashes often occur on roads that were built decades
ago and are now carrying two and three times the traffic volume for which they
were designed.

    Specifically, the guide lists a number of potentially hazardous conditions
that can lead to roadway departure crashes, including: narrow roads and
bridges, roadside hazards that are either too close to the roadway or not
protected by guardrails, narrow shoulders that end in steep slopes or ditches,
and intersections that are poorly marked and lighted.

    "The key to reducing roadway related fatalities is doing everything
possible to keep drivers on the road and then protecting them if they do leave
the road," said Michael J. McCabe, senior vice president and general counsel
for Allstate Insurance Company.  "While there's no 'silver bullet' for
improving roadway safety, there are a number of options communities should
consider."  Some of the highway fixes proposed by the RSF guide include:

    *  Rumble Strips - Upgrading roadside shoulders with this low-cost feature
       can reduce run-off-the-road crashes by 60%.

    *  Intersection Improvements - Creating turn lanes and improving traffic
       channelization at dangerous intersections can reduce fatality rates by
       47%.

    *  Clearer Information - Keeping motorists better informed with clear,
       easy-to-read signs and pavement markings can reduce fatality rates by
       up to 39%.
    *  Traffic Separation - Constructing a median barrier can reduce fatality
       rates by 73%.

    *  Hazard Removal - Removing roadside obstacles and realigning roadways
       can reduce fatality rates by 66%.

    *  Wider Lanes - Widening lanes by a single foot can reduce crashes by 23%
       and widening them by two feet can result in crash reductions of 66%.

    Other features of the Roadway Safety Guide include a checklist for
identifying road and bridge trouble spots, examples of successful
countermeasures in use, tips on building needed community support for fixing
local roadway problems, and helpful hints for working with highway engineers
and other government agencies with jurisdiction over highways and bridges.