Effect of Road Geometrics on Accidents: for safety at geometric design stage

‘Accidents are not natural but they are caused' is a common saying in the area of traffic safety. Thus,if accidents are caused by some factors, those can be identified and appropriate remedial measures can be developed and implemented to the extent feasible. It is strongly felt that most of accidents, being a multi factor event, are not merely due to drivers fault on account of driver's negligence/ignorance of traffic rules and regulations, but also due to many other factors such as abrupt changes in road conditions, flow characteristics, road users behavior, climatic conditions, visibility & absence of traffic guidance, control and management devices. In this study, the accident data of study area for the years 2002-2006 was collected. The data sheet covers all the accident details. The analysis was carried out for the stretch and black spots were identified. Data pertaining to geometrics of the road way were collected for the evaluation of locations and then accident reduction measures are proposed. The data collected was analysed and finally a model was developed for defining the crash rate as a function of geometrical details to predict the future crash rate