Safety Audits

When prevention really is better than the cure!

Road Safety Audit is the evaluation of a highway scheme in design and construction to identify and eliminate potential safety hazards before the road or scheme is opened to road users.

Whilst nationally safety audits are mandatory for only trunk roads here in Lancashire our accident and investigation team carries out safety audits on all but the smallest maintenance schemes.

For major schemes (i.e. more than £100,000) our audits follow this plan:

• Stage 1 - Preparation of consultation plan - consider traffic flows, design standards, impact on network;
• Stage 2 - Prior to planning application - consider turning moves,junction layouts, lighting etc.;
• Stage 3 - Preparation of Side Road Orders/Land Plans - consider capacities, fences, accesses, bus stops etc.;
• Stage 4 - Prior to issue of Contracts - final plans, all street furniture, markings, bridge and surfacing detail;
• Stage 5 - Pre-opening - inspections with site staff and police.

 

 

The safety auditor is always separate from the design team and a range of people with different expertise may be involved in the varying stages; this can include road safety, highway and bridge engineers as well as police officers.

A major feature of safety audit is to consider the safety of all kinds of road users under all kinds of conditions eg vulnerable road users such as pedestrians, children, the elderly. Some examples of areas a safety auditor might consider are:

• poor provision of pedestrian crossing facilities
• a lack of tactile paving and dropped kerbs to assist people with reduced mobility
• lamp columns and signs on high speed roads placed on the wrong side of safety bariers
• cycle facilities which end suddenly leaving cyclists in potentially dangerous situations