Road Safety Audits

One of my responsibility as a traffic engineer includes carrying out Road Safety Audits (RSA) for various projects. To carry out the audits, accreditation as a qualified road safety auditor is required and this can be achieved by attending a 2-day course organised by IPWEA (http://www.ipwea.org/).

As an auditor, my job is to analyse, observe and record down every detail that may be unsafe for any road users both as a driver and a pedestrian. It may be vehicles having insufficent sight distance due to blockages from adverts/vegetation, inadequate lighting, lack of road signs and pedestrians crossings, unsafe speed limts or sub-standard linemarking arrangements.

Audits can be done at different stages of project namely:
Stage 0 (Not known)
Stage 1 (Feasibility Study)
Stage 2 (Concept)
Stage 3 (Detailed Design)
Stage 4 (Pre-Opening)
Stage 5 (Existing Road)

As of recent, road safety audits are considered mandatory by some of the authorities as they form part of an important process in road design in order to prevent lesser accidents or any unsafe elements for road users.