Even the most advanced safety measures will not fully protect the victims of accidents, where vehicles crash into rigid elements of road infrastructure.

At every stage of designing safe roads, architects must anticipate any potential incident. This is especially valid when implementing the principles of passive safe roads and using the so called “forgiving” road equipment.

There is a number of factors that have an impact on driver’s behavior on the road. Concentration levels, awareness, time of day, visibility of road traffic signage and other make it almost impossible to be totally free of any external influence. According to the latest research, it is possible to prevent deaths resulting from collisions with traffic signs and other elements of road equipment. All types of highways should be safe by design and prevent loss of life.

The safe road environment design is an interdisciplinary field that requires the analysis of the technical parameters of roads, drivers’ hypothetical behavior patterns and the reaction of road equipment in collision with vehicles. The professionals designing road networks should continually enhance their knowledge of optimizing the use of passive safe road equipment and structures. They should analyze the road environment in order to achieve the best possible set up. All this should lead to reducing the risks of fatalities in collisions with roadside signage and other elements.

The risk assessment analysis should be carries out for individual elements of road equipment. The methodology for such assessments should include the latest indicators:

In most cases the design and construction processes only require to indicate technical specifications such as the type of the equipment, location, distance, size, thickness, etc. It does not indicate the safety performance in different circumstances and types of accidents.

Given the diverse technologies and materials used for passive safe support posts, uniform performance measures have been introduced to assess the level of safety and functionality. The most important indicator is the ASI – Acceleration Severity Index. This should be at the top of priority when specifying passive safe products. The combination of indicators such as ASI, PHD and THIV may translate into the real severity of injuries of drivers and other road users during a collision with the assessed product. The most dangerous injuries are those to the head and the spine. It is important to realise how important the theoretical part of the design is to the real situations.