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In three recent road safety audits, we’ve observed items attached to barrier systems that are not part of the system. While some, like the plastic guidepost contraption, are unlikely to affect the barrier's functionality, it’s not considered good practice....

Merges from the right are a higher risk road design than merges from the left (in drive-on-the-left countries) for a number of reasons:  Drivers’ line of sight  Blind Spots: Drivers in drive-on-the-left countries sit on the right side of the vehicle, making it more...

Click above for a few of the basic facts about fatigue and driving.  -------------  Follow us on LinkedIn for more snippets and news: @Safe System Solutions Pty Ltd

The AGRD Part 4A discusses an ‘average walking speed of 1.2 m/s’ and further acknowledges that ‘there are pedestrians who may walk at different rates and designers need to consider the types of pedestrians and their likely walking speeds’.  The TMR supplement expands...

  Some traditional Local Area Traffic Management studies focus on how cars move through an area – but here at Safe System Solutions we’re about more than that. We want all road users to be safe and to be able to get to their destination. Our Local Area Traffic...

Street/road art is becoming more and more popular. But what are the risks, and how can they be assessed?   In 2021, Maribyrnong City Council painted colourful polka dots of varying sizes on roads in Yarraville Village to catch the eye of drivers and encourage them to...

A common misconception is that car registration pays for road construction. In reality, roads are funded through general taxation, meaning everyone contributes - cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers. State and Territory registration fees cover insurance and...

There was a time when roadside alcohol and drug testing seemed impossible, yet today, they're essential tools in the road safety toolkit. So, where are we now with roadside fatigue testing?  Fatigue is a major contributor to road trauma, but there’s still more work to...

Dr Amy Williamson, Safe System Solutions Technical Lead – Safe People, has received a prestigious Austroads Achievement Award for leadership in road safety.  The award recognises Amy’s exceptional leadership as the inaugural chair of the Australian and New Zealand...

Would you ride a bike to work if the journey was on flat terrain, less than 5 kilometres, and in a moderate climate?   Sounds ideal, right?  That’s the situation for most people living in Horsham, in Victoria’s west, yet just 1% of Horsham workers cycled to work in...

While this near miss involves a driver that is incorrectly and inappropriately using the intersection, it does highlight one of the additional risks for those trying to navigate the road network in a wheelchair or mobility scooter; their lower eye height compared to...

The Safe System’s principles - proactive interventions and designing roads that anticipate, minimise and manage human error are reshaping how practitioners in the USA think about road safety.  These are exciting times for the transport safety community as the Safe...

When we think about intersections, the focus is often on conflict points (those spots where vehicles can collide due to crossing paths). But did you know intersections also pose a higher risk for run-off-road crashes?  This happens when drivers or riders are forced to...

Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users, facing high risks on our roads and streets. This is one of the reasons we are corporate supporters of Victoria Walks.  One of Victoria Walks’ great pieces of work (with the help of the TAC and MUARC) looked at ten years...

Alcohol is a factor in approximately 20% of all road fatalities. The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education estimates the annual social cost of alcohol abuse in Australia exceeds $36 billion, with 25.5% of this tied to alcohol-related traffic crashes.  Since...

The minimum allowable curve radius for wire rope safety barriers in most jurisdictions is 200m (or the supplier’s minimum recommended radius - whichever is greater). However, some jurisdictions allow a 100m radius curve to be used in specific situations (e.g., in...

Safe System Solutions recently celebrated a major milestone: our 1,500th Road Safety Audit! While each of these audits has been fascinating in its own way, this one stood out as particularly unique. Why? Because it involved assessing the safety impacts of projecting...

First gaining popularity in the early 2000s, pedestrian countdown timers are now widely implemented worldwide. These devices integrate a countdown display with pedestrian signals, showing the seconds remaining for pedestrians to safely complete their crossing. ...

Dynamic visual obstruction is the term for when a moving vehicle blocks another road users’ sightlines.   Austroads Guide to Road Design Part 4A now includes a section on Offset Rural Channelised Left Turn Treatments. This was added as part of the 2023 update in...

What begins as a simple drift-off lane departure can quickly escalate into a higher-angle cross-median crash. The angle at which a vehicle impacts a barrier significantly affects the energy transferred to occupants during the crash. Flexible barrier systems are...