Road safety audits: FHWA case study program

Road safety audits (RSAs) are emerging as an effective tool for proactively improving the safety performance of a road project while it is still in the design or planning stage or for identifying and mitigating safety concerns in existing transportation infrastructure. The authors are nearing the end of a yearlong series of nine pilot RSAs conducted across the United States, sponsored by FHWA's Office of Safety Design and conducted for a variety of agencies at the local (county, city, and tribal) and state levels. The purpose of this paper is to inform the transportation community of this pilot RSA series, to discuss six important lessons learned in the process of conducting the pilot audits, and, on the basis of these lessons, to advise how the usefulness and effectiveness of a road safety audit can be maximized.