The economic and social costs due to road crashes are disproportionately higher in developing countries. In addition, underreporting, coupled with an incomplete and inconsistent recording of reported crashes is a major issue in such settings. A brief outline of the dimension of road safety problems in developing countries and the most common limitations of existing crash databases is given in the paper. The challenges in applying traditional approaches for traffic safety evaluation and initiatives are also discussed. Diagnosis of road safety problems using traffic conflict techniques has received considerable research interest and has gained acceptance as a proactive surrogate measure in developed countries. Significant studies have been accomplished to develop, validate and apply different surrogate indicators for the estimation of traffic conflicts, as well as an assessment of the safety problem in different road geometric and operating conditions. This has provided a substitute for the historical crash records in traffic safety research. The main objective of this paper is to assess the application potentiality of this surrogate safety measures to address safety issues in developing countries. To do that, this paper critically reviews and synthesizes the different indicators of surrogate safety measures. The main principles, as well as advantages and disadvantages of the major indicators and prospects of application, are presented here. Finally, future research directions for road traffic safety assessment are outlined in the perspective of understanding the most concerning human issue due to traffic crashes in developing countries
