Liability: Problem or Crisis?
Engineering firms are being hit with liability insurance rate increases of 30%, 50% or more. Deductibles are being raised and the maximum coverage is being decreased. Some firms cannot...
Tiedback Walls Untie Intersection
The intersection of Gallows Rd. and Arlington Blvd. in Virginia's Fairfax County required separation. Tiedback retaining walls, which required only 18 in. instead of the 18-22...
Spanning Urban Obstacles
Extension of Pittsburgh's Crosstown Expressway is a � mile portion of a massive $500 million urban highway now under construction. The extension is a complex of five roadways...
Scenic Squeeze
Constructing a four-lane dual highway through the 12 miles of Colorado's Glenwood Canyon involves several engineering innovations: cantilevered roadways, unusual retaining...
Transportation Liability and Risk Management
Risk management programs provide an excellent response to the increased exposure of all transportation agencies to tort liability claims. While some actions and responses require resources...
Tort Liability in the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation
During the past decade many have questioned the propriety of the doctrine of sovereign immunity; numerous legal challenges and legislative changes have eroded the doctrine in most states....
Risk Management to Reduce Highway Tort Liability
This paper identifies common risk management techniques and processes. A brief review of tort law is presented along with the specific characteristics of a highway related negligence suit....
Effective Pedestrian Safety Programs
Pedestrian fatalities account for 16 percent of all highway-related deaths and about 129,000 pedestrians are involved in accidents each year. Analyses of pedestrian accident data and determining...
Evaluation of Safety Alternatives by Benefit/Cost Analysis
There is an increasing awareness of the need to use limited highway safety funds on projects that offer the greatest benefits. This paper describes the development and application of a...
Some Questions on the Accuracy of Safety Effectiveness Evaluations
The generally positive benefits of safety improvements, and, in particular, upgraded traffic control devices, are well-established. More difficult is the explicit rank-ordering of traffic...
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Highway Safety Improvements
The need exists for better information relative to the effectiveness of various safety treatments and actions. Reliable measures of effectiveness are required for determining the most...
Roadside Design in the Future
Since the first roadways were built, highway designers have constantly been striving to ensure that motorists can travel to their destinations on safe highways. However, their efforts...
Effects of Shoulder Reductions on Highway Safety
In order to accomodate existing traffic and projected growth, it is essential that the most effective use be made of the limited right-of-way available for freeways. It is important to...
Shoulder Rumble Strips at Narrow Bridges
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...
Effects of Lane Width Reduction on Safety and Flow
This research dealt with the issue of lane narrowing as an alternative to pavement widening in providing safety improvements on urban freeways. This study dealt with I-95 in Miami Florida...
Selection of Performance Levels for Longitudinal Barriers
There is a demand within the highway community for multi-service level safety features, including traffic barriers. The need has become more acute in recent years as revenues decline and...
Performance of Highway Traffic Barriers
This paper describes an investigation of traffic barrier performance in New York State. A one-year sample of all traffic-barrier accidents in the state was obtained from Department of...
Transitioning End Terminal A TRENDtm for the Future
The highway engineer frequently starts from a position where an identified highway element is causing serious injuries or fatalities to motorists on the nation's highways....
End Treatments for Deep Beam Highway Guardrail
End treatments on highway guardrail serve two functions: (1) to make the end safe in case of an impact there, and (2) to provide anchorage in case of an impact adjacent to the end. Two...
Hazardous Events After Redirectional Collisions
The potential for hazardous events occurring to vehicle occupants after a redirection from a longitudinal barrier has not been adequately addressed. Very few studies are available which...
Return to search