Overtaking violations in left-turn lanes of rural roads

Overtaking is a high risk manoeuvre for road users, still drivers often accept this risk, moreover often commit irregular overtaking manoeuvres. The paper gives some overview on traffic violations and irregular overtaking manoeuvres. Left-turn lanes on the major road are usual elements of unsignalized at-grade junctions on two-lane roads outside urban areas. In several cases the left-turn lane, built for safety reasons, has the unintended negative effect, it becomes a dangerous spot. The paper analyses overtaking manoeuvres at left-turn lanes on Hungarian roads. Site surveys were completed at typical sites outside built-up areas. The frequency of irregular overtaking manoeuvres, geometric design, traffic volume, traffic mix and speed characteristics were registered at the intersections. Accident statistics have been collected. Relationships between the frequency of irregular manoeuvres, accident statistics, geometric parameters and traffic data are analysed. KEYWORDS: driver behaviour, left-turn lane, irregular overtaking, site survey, violatio

Comparison of Italian and Hungarian Black Spot Ranking

AbstractBlack spot ranking is an important tool for finding the sites with potential safety improvement on the road network. The EU Directive on Road Infrastructure Safety Management also demands the ranking of high accident concentration sites. This paper gives an introduction to localizing high accident concentration sites and the indicators used by Italy and Hungary. Accident and traffic volume data are gathered for motorway sections from both countries. Safety ranking is made using two conventional indicators, absolute number of accidents and accident rate. A more sophisticated ranking using the Empirical Bayes method is applied. Expected average crash frequency with Empirical Bayes adjustment is calculated. Based on the estimation of the crash frequency, the Critical Crash Rate (CCR) was added to identify and rank black spots. This additional performance measure is able to take into account traffic volume as required by the EU Directive. Results of the Empirical Bayes method are compared with the conventional procedures. It is concluded that the results are not comparable; inasmuch as there are modifications in the order of black spots. Based on the comparison of results recommendations are given to change the practice in both countries