Accidents : their cost and relation to surface characteristics. Paper presented at a Symposium "Safety and the concrete road surface design, specification and construction", organized by the Cement and Concrete Association and held at Warwickshire Co...

It is a well established fact that road surface characteristics can have a significant effect on accidents. Over the years many examples have been cited of reduction in accidents brought about by changes in surface to improve skidding resistance, but it is largely only in this field that beneficial effects have been associated with surface properties. Rather less attention has been paid to the role of the surface in aiding safety at night, the requirements for improving reflection characteristics of road surfaces having largely been eclipsed by the skidding requirements. Further, the more general problem of impaired visibility under wet weather conditions has hardly been associated at all with surface texture from the viewpoint of road safety. This paper aims to bring together some of the different aspects of surface characteristics in relation to accident risk, and to show the potential for reduction in accidents by changes in texture. As a background to this, the general accident situation will be reviewed and some of the underlying causes discussed, together with an indication of costs associated with road accidents. (A)