Seven safety countermeasures to reduce car and truck crashes or collisions.

The Federal Highway Administration emphasizes so-called "safety counter-measures" as a fundamental component of car and truck crash safety. http://www.maryland-law.com/blog/car-and-truck-crash-safety-the-federal-highway-administration-at-work.cfm

What is a "safety counter-measure" you ask? They are "life-saving" strategies the FHWA urges local and state officials to implement to reduce highway fatalities.

These include road safety audits, increased use of rumble strips, median barriers, safety edges, roundabouts, medians, walkways, turn lanes at stop-controlled intersections and yellow change intervals.

A road safety audit is a formal safety performance examination of both existing and proposed roads by a multi-disciplinary road safety team.

Rumble strips are elevated or grooved patterns on the roadway which produce both physical vibrations and sound, to alert drivers they are leaving their lane or the roadway. These are particularly necessary on roadways with a speed of fifty or more.

Median barriers separate opposite-bound vehicles from one another.

Safety edges are interfaces between roadways and paved shoulders designed to minimize vertical drop-off providing safer road edges.

Roundabouts or circles are intersectional control devices which slow down approaching traffic and eliminate high speed traffic light and stop sign-running crashes.

Left and right turning lanes at intersections serve to separate turning vehicles from through vehicles.

Yellow lights are a means to forewarn drivers of an impending light change. Red-light running is one of the leading causes of intersectional collisions.

The final two suggestions are pedestrian oriented. They include medians, pedestrian walkways and pedestrian refuge areas or islands. Provision of pedestrian islands has been shown to reduce pedestrian crashes 46%

Roadside walkways (sidewalks) have been shown to reduce walking along the road crashes by 88%.

For more go to : http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/memo071008/