Safer Roads and Roadsides

The ACT has benefited from previous planning, which has resulted in a well defined hierarchy of roads (excluding pre-1960s districts) and a limited amount of “ribbon development” on main roads. This has contributed to the very good traffic crash rates in the ACT. Road safety should continue to be a consideration in the planning, design and construction of new roads.

Roads ACT has existing programs to manage and improve the ACT road system. Funding is also provided by the Australian Government for the Federal Black Spot Program. This is in addition to safety improvements funded under minor new works programs and Capital Upgrades programs.

Black spot programs address problems in particular locations, and evaluations have shown them to be highly effective with a very favourable cost benefit ratio. Some safety problems in the road environment are more diffuse, but can be improved by “mass application” of remedial measures. Compared with new road construction, remedial measures can be low cost, but highly effective in safety terms.

Frequent crash types in the ACT include:

• “right angle collisions” (representing around 27% of all casualty crashes),
• “rear end collisions” (46% of all crashes) and
• “single vehicle crashes” (15% of all crashes).

The mass application of engineering treatments to address the top ACT locations with these crash types would contribute to an overall improvement in road safety.

The following links provide more detail on the road hierarchy, the engineering treatments and offer a link to allow reporting of hazards identified by the public:

• Hierarchy of Roads
• Engineering Solutions  - These include the Federal Black Spot Program, ACT Government Black Spot Program and the use of Road Safety Audits.
• Reporting Hazards via “Canberra Connect”