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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14195.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14195.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14195.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14195.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14195.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14195.
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Suggested Citation:"Front Matter." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2008. Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14195.
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TRANSPORTAT ION RESEARCH BOARD WASHINGTON, D.C. 2008 www.TRB.org N A T I O N A L C O O P E R A T I V E H I G H W A Y R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M NCHRP REPORT 622 Subject Areas Safety and Human Performance Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures David F. Preusser Allan F. Williams James L. Nichols Julie Tison Neil K. Chaudhary PREUSSER RESEARCH GROUP, INC. Trumbull, CT Research sponsored by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in cooperation with the Federal Highway Administration

NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM Systematic, well-designed research provides the most effective approach to the solution of many problems facing highway administrators and engineers. Often, highway problems are of local interest and can best be studied by highway departments individually or in cooperation with their state universities and others. However, the accelerating growth of highway transportation develops increasingly complex problems of wide interest to highway authorities. These problems are best studied through a coordinated program of cooperative research. In recognition of these needs, the highway administrators of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials initiated in 1962 an objective national highway research program employing modern scientific techniques. This program is supported on a continuing basis by funds from participating member states of the Association and it receives the full cooperation and support of the Federal Highway Administration, United States Department of Transportation. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies was requested by the Association to administer the research program because of the Board’s recognized objectivity and understanding of modern research practices. The Board is uniquely suited for this purpose as it maintains an extensive committee structure from which authorities on any highway transportation subject may be drawn; it possesses avenues of communications and cooperation with federal, state and local governmental agencies, universities, and industry; its relationship to the National Research Council is an insurance of objectivity; it maintains a full-time research correlation staff of specialists in highway transportation matters to bring the findings of research directly to those who are in a position to use them. The program is developed on the basis of research needs identified by chief administrators of the highway and transportation departments and by committees of AASHTO. Each year, specific areas of research needs to be included in the program are proposed to the National Research Council and the Board by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. Research projects to fulfill these needs are defined by the Board, and qualified research agencies are selected from those that have submitted proposals. Administration and surveillance of research contracts are the responsibilities of the National Research Council and the Transportation Research Board. The needs for highway research are many, and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program can make significant contributions to the solution of highway transportation problems of mutual concern to many responsible groups. The program, however, is intended to complement rather than to substitute for or duplicate other highway research programs. Published reports of the NATIONAL COOPERATIVE HIGHWAY RESEARCH PROGRAM are available from: Transportation Research Board Business Office 500 Fifth Street, NW Washington, DC 20001 and can be ordered through the Internet at: http://www.national-academies.org/trb/bookstore Printed in the United States of America NCHRP REPORT 622 Project 17-33 ISSN 0077-5614 ISBN: 978-0-309-11754-8 Library of Congress Control Number 2008909235 © 2008 Transportation Research Board COPYRIGHT PERMISSION Authors herein are responsible for the authenticity of their materials and for obtaining written permissions from publishers or persons who own the copyright to any previously published or copyrighted material used herein. Cooperative Research Programs (CRP) grants permission to reproduce material in this publication for classroom and not-for-profit purposes. Permission is given with the understanding that none of the material will be used to imply TRB, AASHTO, FAA, FHWA, FMCSA, FTA, or Transit Development Corporation endorsement of a particular product, method, or practice. It is expected that those reproducing the material in this document for educational and not-for-profit uses will give appropriate acknowledgment of the source of any reprinted or reproduced material. For other uses of the material, request permission from CRP. NOTICE The project that is the subject of this report was a part of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program conducted by the Transportation Research Board with the approval of the Governing Board of the National Research Council. Such approval reflects the Governing Board’s judgment that the program concerned is of national importance and appropriate with respect to both the purposes and resources of the National Research Council. The members of the technical committee selected to monitor this project and to review this report were chosen for recognized scholarly competence and with due consideration for the balance of disciplines appropriate to the project. The opinions and conclusions expressed or implied are those of the research agency that performed the research, and, while they have been accepted as appropriate by the technical committee, they are not necessarily those of the Transportation Research Board, the National Research Council, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, or the Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. Each report is reviewed and accepted for publication by the technical committee according to procedures established and monitored by the Transportation Research Board Executive Committee and the Governing Board of the National Research Council. The Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the National Research Council, the Federal Highway Administration, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and the individual states participating in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program do not endorse products or manufacturers. Trade or manufacturers’ names appear herein solely because they are considered essential to the object of this report.

CRP STAFF FOR NCHRP REPORT 622 Christopher W. Jenks, Director, Cooperative Research Programs Crawford F. Jencks, Deputy Director, Cooperative Research Programs Charles W. Niessner, Senior Program Officer Eileen P. Delaney, Director of Publications Maria Sabin Crawford, Assistant Editor NCHRP PROJECT 17-33 PANEL Field of Traffic—Area of Safety Susan Herbel, Cambridge Systematics, Inc., Heathrow, FL (Chair) Ronald Lipps, Maryland State Highway Administration, Hanover, MD Edward B. Crowell, Georgia Motor Trucking Association, Smyrna, GA Steve L. Eagan, New Mexico DOT, Santa Fe, NM Barbara Harsha, Governors Highway Safety Association, Washington, DC James H. Hedlund, Highway Safety North, Ithaca, NY Marsha Lembke, North Dakota DOT, Bismarck, ND J. Scott Osberg, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Washington, DC Robert L. Thompson, Iowa Governor’s Traffic Safety Bureau, Des Moines, IA Terecia W. Wilson, South Carolina DOT, Columbia, SC Elizabeth A. Baker, NHTSA Liaison Thomas “Tom” Granda, FHWA Liaison John E. Balser, Other Liaison Richard Pain, TRB Liaison C O O P E R A T I V E R E S E A R C H P R O G R A M S

This report presents the findings of a research project to develop a framework and guid- ance for estimating the costs and benefits of emerging, experimental, untried, or unproven behavioral highway safety countermeasures. This report will be of particular interest to safety practitioners responsible for the development and implementation of the state’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan. In 2006, the U.S. DOT reported 42,642 fatalities and nearly 3 million injuries resulting from highway crashes nationwide. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that highway crashes cost society more than $230 billion a year. To reduce injuries, fatalities, and other costs, billions of dollars are invested every year to engi- neer and construct improved and safer infrastructure, enforce traffic safety laws, and educate users of the nation’s highway system on safe practices. Each year, hundreds of millions of these dollars are spent on behavioral highway safety countermeasures without sufficient knowledge of their benefits. The lack of sound infor- mation on the efficacy and costs of behavioral safety countermeasures such as public aware- ness campaigns, new safety program start-ups, and enforcement programs impedes effec- tive decision making. With limited resources and the duty to ensure public accountability in the use of funds available for behavioral highway safety programs, there is a need to provide decision mak- ers with additional information to determine the countermeasures that will result in the greatest reductions of crashes, injuries, and fatalities. Under NCHRP Project 17-33, “Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Counter- measures,” researchers at the Preusser Research Group, Inc., developed a framework and guidance for estimating the costs and benefits of emerging, experimental, untried, or unproven behavioral highway safety countermeasures. The researchers reviewed the behavioral countermeasures included in the report: Coun- termeasures that Work: A Highway Safety Countermeasure Guide for State Highway Offices. This report was prepared for the NHTSA by the Governors Highway Safety Association. The 104 countermeasures in the report were divided into four groups: proven to be effec- tive, likely to be effective, unlikely to be effective or the effects are unknown, and known to have negative consequences. Effectiveness estimates were developed for a number of the proven to be effective countermeasures. The report includes a classification scheme to estimate the effectiveness of counter- measures that are believed “likely” to work but for which evaluation evidence is not yet available, as well as emerging and developing countermeasures that have not yet been fully implemented or evaluated. Guidelines are presented for estimating when countermeasures within each of these classifications are likely to be cost effective. F O R E W O R D By Charles W. Niessner Staff Officer Transportation Research Board

C O N T E N T S 1 Summary 2 Chapter 1 Introduction 3 Chapter 2 Countermeasures 5 Chapter 3 Countermeasure Classification 5 Changing Driver Behavior 5 Cautions about the Countermeasures 6 Countermeasure Categories 9 Summary 10 Chapter 4 Estimation of Highway Loss 10 Target Group Size—Fatal Injury 10 Target Group Size—Nonfatal Injury 11 Cost of Fatal and Nonfatal Injury 13 Chapter 5 Estimation of Savings 13 Median State 13 Countermeasure Effectiveness 15 Proven Countermeasures 18 Chapter 6 Estimation of Cost to Implement Countermeasures 18 Political Capital 18 Resource Allocation 19 User Pay 19 Direct Cost 22 Chapter 7 Using this Guide 22 1. Identify Proven Injury Reducing Countermeasures That Can Be Implemented 24 2a. Use Countermeasures That Are Likely To Be Effective 24 2b. Consider Proven Countermeasures with No Effectiveness Estimates 25 3. Avoid Countermeasures with Unknown and Unlikely Effectiveness 25 4. Do No Harm 26 Selection of Countermeasures 27 Shift in Strategy 28 New and Emerging Countermeasures 28 Conclusion 29 References

33 Appendix A Unknown/Uncertain/Unlikely Countermeasures 36 Appendix B Effectiveness Estimates for Twenty-Three Proven Countermeasures 49 Appendix C Countermeasures Likely to Work 50 Appendix D Proven Countermeasures With No Crash or Injury Reduction Calculations

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TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 622: Effectiveness of Behavioral Highway Safety Countermeasures explores a framework and guidance for estimating the costs and benefits of emerging, experimental, untried, or unproven behavioral highway safety countermeasures.

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