Engineering judgment and road safety.

Accid Anal Prev

35 Merton Street Apt. 1706, M4S3G4, Toronto, Canada. Electronic address:

Published: August 2019

AI Article Synopsis

  • Decisions made by highway and traffic engineers profoundly impact road user safety.
  • Current engineering guidelines recommend using 'engineering judgment,' but this often lacks a solid evidence-based approach.
  • The gap between theoretical safety considerations and practical applications raises important concerns about balancing safety and mobility in engineering practices.

Article Abstract

Decisions that highway and traffic engineers make significantly affect the safety of road users. The documents that guide highway and traffic engineering practice suggest that many of these decisions be made by 'engineering judgment'. One would like this judgment to be informed by evidence-based anticipation of their likely safety consequences and by a professional ability to balance safety against mobility and other dimensions of 'utility'. I show that these desiderata are largely unfulfilled. The many implications of this finding are discussed.

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Source
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aap.2019.04.022DOI Listing

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