Road Safety Engineering experience

There should be substantial road safety engineering experience within the Road Safety Audit Team. 

A minimum of two days CPD in the field of Road Safety Audit, Accident Investigation or Road Safety Engineering experience in the past 12 months. 

Some Road Safety Auditors use checklists describing some of the potential safety issues, but care should be taken not to be restricted by items on the checklists. A checklist should not be used as a substitute for Road Safety Engineering experience. It is sometimes the interaction between design elements that can lead to safety problems and not one element in isolation, for example a junction on a bend on a downhill section. 

Without road safety engineering experience and an understanding of safety principles, a Road Safety Audit can become simply a design check. Road safety experience is essential in enabling Road Safety Auditors to identify road safety problems and in assisting to make appropriate recommendations. Chapters 5 and 6 provide extensive information... 

HD 19/15 continues with the advice from previous Road Safety Audit standards regarding the training and experience requirements for Road Safety Audit Observers, Members and Team Leaders (see Chapter 3). It is at the discretion of the Project Sponsor whether to implement these requirements to the letter. However, at least one member of the audit team must hold a Certificate of Competency. The implication of this is that the training and experience requirements become mandatory for at least one member of the Road Safety Audit Team. These include 10 days formal training, 2 years (recent) collision investigation/road safety engineering experience, and five Road Safety Audits completed in the past 24 months. 

Road Safety Auditors should have experience of road safety, and have undertaken an approved course in Road Safety Audit. They need to demonstrate independence from the design team. The Road Safety Audit Team Leader should be a qualified engineer registered as an auditor, with 3 years road safety engineering experience. A Road Safety Auditor Team Member requires 2 years experience. The team normally consists of two auditors, but a single auditor is allowed on small schemes. 

Road Safety Audit provides road safety engineers with an opportunity to feed their experience into the highway design process. Road Safety Audit should improve the awareness of safe design practices by all concerned in the design, construction and maintenance of roads. 

A minimum of four years experience in Accident Investigation or Road Safety Engineering. 

In Spain, the first Certificate of Competence training course was held during the summer of 2013. Twenty delegates attended a very practical Road Safety Audit course that took place over 10 weeks, involving around 60 contact hours. Delegates pre-qualified with experience in design, road safety engineering and collision analysis. 

One of the team members has to hold a Road Safety Audit Certificate of Competency, and the team leader must be a chartered engineer with at least 7 years experience in design, road safety engineering and collision investigation. 

The Road Safety Audit process in the UK started to gather pace when safety engineers realised that they were carrying out accident remedial schemes on relatively new roads. Adopting the principle of prevention is better than cure, they decided to use some of the safety experience they had gained from the remedial work, and design safety into new road schemes. 

The use of Value Engineering has increased in a number of provinces. Safety plays an important role in the deliberations. Generally, an experienced Road Safety Auditor is included on the team. Again the experience with Value Engineering has been positive for road safety. 

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