A Best-Practice Example of Changes in Road Design
In road safety work, as in many other fields, it is important to learn from cases that result in damage or loss, recognize key areas of risk, and implement improvements. Interdisciplinary accident committees, such as those that are widespread and have proven effective in Germany, play a role in this, as do the departments and authorities in charge of road building, who have the scope required to take such action – not to mention the political will to take a serious approach to road safety work and implement it accordingly.
If you look at sections of road where a severe accident or a spate of accidents has occurred some time after, you can often see that changes have since been made to their design. One example of such action took place after the accident between a pedelec rider and a truck that was turning right described on page 33. Road signs and bollards have been installed and a white line has been marked on the side-walk and the bicycle path to show cyclists the safe route across the junction. This solution will permanently suppress the use of the dangerous shortcut that bypasses the crossing aid, which was facilitated by the infrastructure design at the time of the accident.This unconventional, fast, and low-cost solution will increase safety levels for both cyclists and pedestrians until the area around the junction can be given a safer redesign overall the next time scheduled construction work takes place.