In 1990 the Institution of Highways and Transportation published the first “Guidelines for the Safety Audit of Highways". A wealth of experience has been gained since then both in the UK and overseas. Britain has led the way in road safety audit which has now been taken up around the world, notably in Australia, New Zealand and Denmark.

The need for Road Safety Audit of new highway schemes was implicit in the 1974 Road Traffic Act as part of the statutory duty placed on Local Authorities and re-inforced by the 1988 Act.

Safety Audit requires the application of safety principles in the provision, improvement and maintenance of roads as a means of accident prevention. Road safety audit should be an integral part of highway planning, design, construction and maintenance. To this end, their needs to be an explicit commitment to safety amongst politicians, top management and line managers in any highway commissioning, design or construction organisation, together with an awareness of the role and benefits of safety audit.

These new Guidelines build on the recommendations in the IHT “Review of Road Safety Procedures". They describe best practice and make recommendations for safety audit procedures. These revised guidelines are a comprehensive guide to “engineering out" potentially unsafe features in new road schemes, improvements to existing roads, traffic management schemes and major maintenance projects. Following the guidance contained in this document will reduce the need to modify road schemes at a late stage in their development in order to improve safety.

The “Guidelines for the Road Safety Audit "answer such questions as: What is road safety audit? Who needs guidelines? What should be audited? When to undertake a safety audit? Who should audit? What resources are needed? What are the benefits?

These guidelines outline the decision making process; the principles and issues of safety audit; the underlying concepts; the consequences of audit; procedures and practice; roles and responsibilities. They recommend a Code of Good Practice covering: managing safety audit; development-led schemes; selecting the teams; the safety audit brief; undertaking the audit; responding to recommendations of audit. They also detail safety principles and sources of information; the follow-up to road safety audit; monitoring individual schemes; monitoring and evaluating procedures and practice; legal implications; the implications of the Health and Safety at Work Act and CDM Regulations; and the feedback from audits.

Every attempt has been made to present current best practice. While the approaches to audit will inevitably change over time this document will continue to be a source of best practice for many years in the future.

The Institution commends this manual to all safety professionals, highway engineers, traffic engineers, transport planners, town planners and others who are concerned with road design, both in the public and private sectors.

The IHT would like to thank all those who contributed and express their appreciation, in particular, to the Chairman and members of the Working Party: Barbara Sabey ISO (Chairman) Road Safety Consultant Peter Borrough The Highways Agency Tim Cheesebrough Hampshire CC Steve Proctor TMS Consultancy Derek Palmer (Secretary) Institution of Highways and Transportation

The IHT appreciates the funding for revising the “Guidelines on Road Safety Audit"" provided by 3M pie.

The “Guidelines on Road Safety Audit" provided are published by the Institution of Highways and Transportation. Copies are available from the Institution, priced £15 per single copy (UK postage free); for Europe add £1.50, other Overseas add £2.50. Bulk copies are available at a cost of £40.00 for 3 copies (UK postage free); Europe £40.00 plus £4.00 Postage and other Overseas £40.00 plus £10.00 Postage.

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