Road
Safety considerations

Careful design and construction of roads can increase road traffic safety and reduce the harm (deaths, injuries, and property damage) on the highway system from traffic collisions.

On neighborhood roads traffic calming, safety barriers, pedestrian crossings and cycle lanes can help protect pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.

Lane markers in some countries and states are marked with Cat's eyes or Botts dots. Botts dots are not used where it is icy in the winter, because frost and snowplows can break the glue that holds them to the road, although they can be embedded in short, shallow trenches carved in the roadway, as is done in the mountainous regions of California.

For major roads risk can be reduced by providing limited access from properties and local roads, grade separated junctions and median dividers between opposite-direction traffic to reduce the likelihood of head-on collisions.

The placement of energy attenuation devices (e.g. guardrails, wide grassy areas, sand barrels) is also common. Some road fixtures such as road signs and fire hydrants are designed to collapse on impact. Light poles are designed to break at the base rather than violently stop a car that hits them. Highway authorities may also remove larger trees from the immediate vicinity of the road. During heavy rains, if the elevation of the road surface is not higher than the surrounding landscape, it may result in flooding.

Speed limits can improve road traffic safety and reduce the number of road traffic casualties from traffic collisions. In their World report on road traffic injury prevention report, the World Health Organization (WHO) identify speed control as one of various interventions likely to contribute to a reduction in road casualties.
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