RSP Module 1: Foundations of Road Safety
This module covers a broad spectrum of road safety topics at a high level, to introduce the transportation professional to basic concepts and terminology and understand the scope of what is commonly considered to be major elements of the road safety genre. The specific areas covered include a basic definition of road safety, evidence-based road safety, crash causation and severity, road user characteristics, road safety partners, approaches to road safety management, economic analysis of safety, road safety culture, and future trends in safety policy and technology.

Learning Objectives

• Define road safety using an approved reference source
• Describe evidence-based road safety using road safety literature
• Describe the contributing factors of traffic crashes and the impact of collision types and multidisciplinary characteristics on crash severity
• Describe vehicle characteristics and safety features, road users’ behaviors, ability and errors and their impacts on the selection of safety countermeasures
• Identify partners in road safety that have a role to play in preventing crashes and reducing crash severity
• Describe different approaches to road safety management
• Describe how to balance safety with other transportation goals by evaluating safety benefits and costs
• Describe the elements of a road safety culture within an organization or discipline and how to achieve it
• Discuss developments in policy and technology that will influence road safety in the future