Shoulder Rumble Strips at Narrow Bridges

by Jerry W. Emerson, Federal Highway, Administration/Kuwait, Washington, DC, USA,
Leonard B. West, Jr., Federal Highway, Administration/Kuwait, Washington, DC, USA,



Document Type: Proceeding Paper

Part of: Effectiveness of Highway Safety Improvements

Abstract:

The highways in the United States have thousands of minimum design narrow bridges. Replacement of these bridges with current state of the art designs is not cost effective nor feasible in the forseeable future. An interim countermeasure, shoulder rumble strips, has been installed at several hundred bridge approaches on the Oklahoma Turnpikes. Accident data from the before and after period was analyzed using detailed traffic and injury rates of 50 percent and a benefit cost analysis showed a cost effectiveness range from 29:1 to 154:1. It was concluded shoulder rumble strips are an effective countermeasure that should be placed on approaches to narrow bridges.

Subject Headings: Highway and road shoulders | Highway bridges | Traffic accidents | Bridge design | Benefit cost ratios | Traffic analysis | Pavements | United States | Oklahoma

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