Road Safety Audit Guidelines

In 1990 the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation published the first “Guidelines for the Safety Audit of Highways". A wealth of experience has been gained since then both in the UK and overseas. Britain led the way in developing road safety audit practice with approaches which have now been developed and adapted around the world, notably in Australia, New Zealand and Denmark.

In the UK, the need for Road Safety Audit of new highway schemes was implicit in the 1974 Road Traffic Act as part of the statutory duty placed on Local  Authorities and was re-enforced by the 1988 Act.

Safety Audit requires the application of safety principles in the provision, improvement and maintenance of roads as a means of accident prevention. Road safety audit should therefore be an integral part of highway planning, design, construction and maintenance. To this end, there needs to be an explicit commitment to safety amongst politicians, top management and line managers in any highway commissioning, design or construction organisation, together with an awareness of the role and benefits of safety audit.

The second edition of the Institution’s Guidelines was published in 1996 with funding provided by 3M. It built on the recommendations contained in the Institution’s 1995 national “Review of Road Safety Audit Procedures". The edition described best practice as it had emerged at that time and made fresh recommendations for safety audit procedures, particularly in local authorities. The revised guidelines represented a comprehensive guide to “engineering out" potentially unsafe features in new road schemes, improvements to existing roads, traffic management schemes and major maintenance projects. 

The edition went on to contain advice on the principles and issues of safety audit; the underlying concepts; the consequences of audit; procedures and practice; roles and responsibilities. It recommended a Code of Good Practice covering: managing safety audit; development-led schemes; selecting the teams; the safety audit brief; undertaking the audit; responding to recommendations from audits. The edition further detailed safety principles and sources of information; the follow-up to road safety audit; monitoring individual schemes; monitoring and evaluating procedures and practice; legal implications; the implications of the Health and Safety at Work Act and CDM Regulations; and the feedback from audits.

Road Safety Audit (2008)
The third and newest edition of the IHT Road Safety  Audit Guidelines has been produced following two recent initiatives in road safety and related fields. The revised UK Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) Road Safety Audit Standard HD 19/03 was produced in 2003, and the Manual for Streets (MfS) was produced in 2007 by the Department for Transport and the Department for Communities and Local Government. Both documents have significant consequences for Road Safety Audit, prompting the Institution to conduct a comprehensive review of the Guidelines under the editorial lead of Steve Proctor, TMS Consultancy.

The new Guidelines therefore update previous editions with fresh advice, for example, on matters such as qualifications for Road Safety Auditors and on legal issues within Road Safety Audit.

In addition, the new edition seeks to advise local highway authorities
over ways in which they can appropriately resource a Road Safety Audit process relative to their own needs. It advises of those areas in which they may consider carrying out Road Safety Audits in a different way to that set out in HD19/03. It also importantly gives advice on how to respond to issues in the Manual for Streets (MfS), including how to work within a “Quality Audit” process for certain types of schemes covered by MfS.

The new edition is available now by ordering from the Institution’s website. Please visit CIHT'S Publications to order your copy or for more information