Speed reduction as a road safety measure

Abstract

The growing number of road accidents is a major national problem in Sri Lanka. By analyzing the police database of past accident records, the causes for the road accidents have been identified as a prominent cause for road traffic accidents. According to the past accident records from the year 1992 to 1999, there were about 17507 fatal accidents, and 29526 grievous accidents occurred out of the total of 613785 accidents over the last eight years. The annual loss due to road traffic accidents has been evaluated as Rs. 12.9 billion in year 1999. The research was focused on high speeds at intersections since a higher percentage of accidents occurred close to or at intersections. A feasibility study has been conducted for a speed reduction measure which uses transverse bar markings. The results before the study and after the study indicated that there is a marginal drop in the speeds due to the presence of transverse strips. Thus, the use of a combination of transverse strips and other measures is suggested at intersections.