Road Safety Signing Audit

Typically, rural road safety is managed reactively. Engineers investigate crash locations on the assumption that future crashes are most likely to occur in those same locations. However, rural road crashes are frequently distributed in seemingly random patterns and may not accurately correlate to roadway deficiencies. Rather than reacting to historic crash data, identifying specific systemic road deficiencies offers a proactive alternative to improving roadway safety. Roadway signing is one of the easiest roadway characteristics to quantify and analyze, and correcting signing deficiencies is a cost effective way to improve safety. In response to this unique challenge, Nevada County prepared a comprehensive Roadway Safety Signing Audit (RSSA) along 50 miles of corridors that provide vital access and connectivity throughout western Nevada County. These corridors also experience higher-than-average collision rates. The RSSA evaluated deficiencies in critical corridors and generated the necessary information to proceed with a signage replacement and installation construction project. This proactive approach to traffic safety is expected to prevent fatalities and injury collisions with low-cost regulatory, warning, and guide signage improvements.