Roadside Safety Issues

This Circular documents the activities of a workshop held at the National Academy of Sciences' J. Erik Jonsson Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on August 11-13, 1994. The workshop, sponsored by the Transportation Research Board Roadside Safety Features Committee ( A2A04) and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, was organized to bring together transportation professionals to discuss the current status of roadside safety research and explore new approaches and methods that could produce safety benefits in the coming decade. Featured at the workshop were six invited papers/presentations on: Evolution of Roadside Safety; The Roadside Safety Problem; The Evolution of Vehicle Safety and Crashworthiness; Evolution of Vehicle Crashworthiness as Influenced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; Methods for Analyzing the Cost-Effectiveness of Roadside Features; and Applications of Simulation in Design and Analysis of Roadside Safety Features. Following these presentations, the workshop participants were divided into four breakout groups. These groups addressed the following issues: Data and analysis needs; Selection and design of roadside safety treatments; Efficacy of simulation methods; and Assessing and developing roadside hardware. This Circular contains the six invited papers, summaries of the findings of each discussion group, and selected comments by workshop participants.