High-Risk Rural Road Safety Study and Determining the Crash-Reduction Factors for High-Risk Rural-Road Usage

Abstract

More than 32,000 motorists are killed on U.S. roads and streets annually, and approximately 54% of the accidents occur on rural roads. In an attempt to address and reduce these fatalities, the current transportation act, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equality Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETY-LU), elevated the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) to a core program and included a $90,000,000 High-Risk Rural Road Program (HRRRP) to address and significantly reduce traffic fatalities and incapacitating injuries on rural major or minor collectors, and/or rural local roads. While there were many challenges to properly implement the HRRRP in counties, this study provided important information that was needed to identify the predominant crash types on HRRRP-eligible roads and compiled a list of countermeasures for the predominant crash types that were identified on Kansas’ high-risk rural roads. For the gathered countermeasures, crash reduction factors (CRFs) were also provided from the literature review, and their values were validated by conducting interviews with Kansas county engineers/officials. This study provided valuable information for the county engineers and local government officials while they worked on improving the safety of high-risk rural roads using HRRRP funds.