Road Safety Audits Reports

All problems identified in a Road Safety Audit Report must relate to road safety problems — the circumstances in which road accidents could occur if the situation remains imchanged. 

An example of a Stage 2 Road Safety Audit Report problem/ recommendation format follows. In this case a new traffic signal junction is being introduced on an existing road. 

The recipient of a Road Safety Audit Report may be the design organisation or the client. Whoever receives the report will have to decide whether or not to act on the recommendations contained... 

The following example shows how the Exception Report can be written when a Road Safety Audit Report has identified high... 

While the Road Safety Auditor concentrates on road safety issues, the client or design project engineer will have to weigh up the various consequences of implementing the recommendations within the Road Safety Audit Report. Generally, the project engineer will prepare an Exception Report or at least a feedback form explaining why recommendations have been rejected. However, occasionally there will be situations where decisions are very difficult and in these cases it may be necessary to introduce a system of arbitration. 

Problems identified within Road Safety Audit Reports... 

After an accident has occurred, it may be alleged that a highway issue is in part responsible for the accident. If the accident has occurred on a road scheme that would have been audited, the Road Safety Audit report. Exception Report and any other information are discoverable documents that may have a bearing on the outcome. 

The safety problem was discussed but not submitted in the Road Safety Audit Report. It may have been submitted as a problem at a previous stage of Road Safety Audit and rejected in a corresponding Exception Report. 

In many countries the Road Safety Audit process is being extended to carry out Road Safety Audits on existing roads. In some of these countries the quality of accident data is poor, and reporting levels are low. The Road Safety Audit Report is therefore used as a proxy for accident data. 

In these circumstances Road Safety Audit Reports may not be helpful to the client. 

Previous Highways Agency Road Safety Audit Standards suggested the use of a star system to highlight the most important issues in a Road Safety Audit Report, but HD 19/03 does not include this system. 

Recommendations in Road Safety Audit reports that go beyond standards can sometimes lead to conflict with designers. The Road Safety Audit process is discussed in Chapter 3. 

Transport for London (TfL) has procedures for carrying out Road Safety Audits in the capital (TfL, 2014). These procedures are intended for use on the TfL Road Network (TLRN) but are also commended to the London boroughs for use on their own roads. The TfL procedures are very similar to the HA standard, but allow for issues beyond the scope of the Safety Audit to be included in the Road Safety Audit report, and allow night-time visits on Stage 3 Road Safety Audits to be postponed in certain circumstances. 

Road Safety Audit be carried out for the developer with the Road Safety Audit report being checked by in-house staff At least one local highway authority has adopted the method described in the HA standard, and appoints a development control officer to act as the client from the Feasibility Stage to the adoption of the highway. The appointed person controls the road safety process, and liaises with the developer and the Road Safety Audit team. 

Local authorities need to determine how and when this type of scheme should be audited. They also need to determine who carries out the Road Safety Audits and who will make final decisions on whether to adopt recommendations in the Road Safety Audit reports. 

The recipient of a Road Safety Audit report may be the design organisation or the client. Whoever receives the report will have to decide whether or not to act on the recommendations contained within the report. In most cases the client will instruct the designer to make changes in response to the Road Safety Audit report. Where these are major changes, it may be necessary to carry out a re-audit of all or part of the scheme. 

The design team should produce a response report to the Road Safety Audit report that is passed to the client organisation together with the audit report. 

Having received a Road Safety Audit report and the response report, the client organisation will consider the two reports. If there are any items highlighted in the Road Safety Audit report which are not going to be acted upon, the client should produce an exception report. When writing an exception report, it should be noted that the Road Safety Audit report, the response report and the exception report could be used in future litigation. The legal implications of Road Safety Audit are looked at in Chapter 7. 

If the client organisation decides not to implement recommendations contained in a Road Safety Audit report, then it should prepare an exception report. This report should detail why the recommendations are not being adopted. HD 19/15 provides an example of an exception report in Annex L. When preparing exception reports for trunk road or motorway schemes, the Project Sponsor is required to undertake a specific risk assessment for each issue (GD 04/12). 

Following the course, the candidates have to provide examples of Road Safety Audit reports they have produced and a description of their role in the Road Safety Audit process. The reports are examined by road safety tutors at TMS Consultancy to ensure that the safety problems have been appropriately identihed and that the proposed... 

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