Improving road safety has been the key objective for road authorities worldwide for the last years. Lately, many concepts were adopted to reduce the number of fatalities, concepts like self-explaining roads, low cost measures or forgiving roads. As new research findings are published, differing theories evolve and road safety visions change. Nowadays, around 30% of accidents on the entire EU road network are caused by inadequate infrastructure. The way roads are laid out and designed can reduce the exposure to traffic of vulnerable road users, reduce the probability that crash and injury occur when these users are exposed and reduce the severity of injury if it occurs. Substantial and sustainable casualty reductions can be achieved in relatively short time and at relatively short cost by identifying and treating high risk infrastructure sites, creating safer and forgiving roads. The aim of this paper is to improve traffic safety by increasing the awareness of road authorities, in order for them to implement road safety measures following the concepts of forgiving roadsides and taking into consideration the human factors also.

road safety; road elements; forgiving roads; traffic accidents