The need for passive safety

The Passive Revolution’s central objective is to promote safer roadsides. Passive safety can greatly reduce the road toll on non-trunk roads where most of our road casualties figures now occur. We understand no-one in the UK has been killed or seriously injured hitting an item of passively safe street furniture or in a related secondary accident where a passively safe item of street furniture breaks away.

The UK continues to be a world leader in road safety. Our casualty rates are among the lowest in Europe, and we have a long history of developing and applying the latest techniques to improve the safety of our roads. Local au- thorities and their partners play a vital part in making our roads as safe as they are. Around 90% of all accidents occur on local roads and the most successful authorities have reduced killed and seriously injured casualties by embracing new ideas and implementing them on their roads.

But the more we achieve the harder it will become to achieve more. It has been demonstrated that whilst the concepts of ‘forgiving roads’ and ‘proactive safety’ are forward thinking approaches they are successful approaches that contribute to minimising the severity of injuries. These new guidelines on passive safety are a welcome addition to a designer's docu- mentation and one that contributes to the concepts previously mentioned.

General guidelines provide advice for the adoption and selection of the type of passively safe signposts, light- ing columns, traffic signal poles, bollards and other pas- sively safe street furniture for non-trunk rural and urban roads.