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Tag Archives: road safety
On roundabouts and how they can improve safety at intersections
Roundabouts are perhaps something that should be considered for Philippine roads. The concern, however, is that Philippine drivers don’t know how to navigate or position themselves in roundabouts. And the results as we have seen in several cases are congested roundabouts or rotundas.
AASHTO (September 26, 2025) “State DOTs Highlight How Roundabouts Improve Safety,” AASHTO Journal, https://aashtojournal.transportation.org/state-dots-highlight-how-roundabouts-improve-safety/%5BLast accessed: 10/19/2025]
To quote from the article:
“To highlight the safety benefits of roundabouts, the Ohio Department of Transportation recently released an analysis of crash data from 76 intersections statewide that had been converted to roundabouts. That analysis indicated single lane roundabouts decreased injury crashes by 69 percent while multi-lane roundabouts resulted in a 25 percent decline.”
And here another quotable from the same article:
“For us, it’s simple. Roundabouts remove cross-traffic turns and eliminate T-bone crashes, while improving traffic flow,” said PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll …”“Any design that dramatically reduces the most serious crashes we see on the road is worthy of consideration in our projects.”
The article also includes a YouTube video on traffic circles.
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Article share: In Defence of Vision Zero — a Traffic Engineer’s Perspective
On weekends, I try to catch up on reading articles that I have deferred indulging on during busy weekdays. One such article that I have repeatedly put off reading is this one on road safety:
Source: In Defence of Vision Zero — a Traffic Engineer’s Perspective
To quote from the article:
“For years, success in transportation was measured in level of service, vehicle throughput, and reduced delay times. But Vision Zero forced the industry to confront a difficult truth. The more we prioritized speed and volume, the more we endangered the most vulnerable users of the road: pedestrians and cyclists, with particular emphasis on children and older adults. Those who sit in decision-making positions must recognize the realities of physics, namely that the human body is frail and vulnerable to a transportation system that prioritizes throughput over safety.”
The article is a really good read and one that I would recommend for my students in Traffic Engineering to read.
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On safety along boring roads
I saw this interesting article about “boring” roads. It seems to be consistent with anecdotal evidence about ordinary roads with unremarkable features especially along adjacent lands. What may be termed as “beautiful” and “remarkable” may not necessarily be distractions to road users. Rather, it may keep people’s attention on the roads and people outside cars or, as the article refers to them, non-motorist car injuries or fatalities. There seems to be some confusing outcomes or perhaps confusing use of terminology in how the article is written (i.e., how perceptions are stated in the article).
Wilson, K. (August 21, 2025) “Study: Boring Roads End Up With More Injuries For People Outside Cars,” Streets Blog USA, https://usa.streetsblog.org/2025/08/21/study-boring-roads-end-up-with-more-injuries-for-people-outside-cars [Last accessed: 8/27/2025]
Quoting from the article:
“Researchers at the University of Connecticut recently analyzed the emotional reactions of more than 81,000 volunteers to a trove of Google Street View images from 56 cities around the world — and found that certain recurring perceptions correlated tightly with how many car crashes involving vulnerable road users actually happened where those photos were taken.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the participants were pretty good at gauging whether a road was “safe” for walking and biking just by eyeballing it and reporting on how safe it made them feel in general, adding further evidence to the pile that “perceived safety” is a critical metric that every transportation leader should take seriously. Streets that volunteers perceived as “wealthier” also tended to record lower crash volumes — which also might be intuitive, considering that some of the most obvious signs of neighborhood affluence can be great public infrastructure like smooth sidewalks, pristine bike lanes, and ample street lighting.
Roads that were rated as “lively,” meanwhile, were associated with higher crash volumes — though the researchers were careful to note that may just be because there were more people in those images, and crash rates per capita, or per pedestrian- or bike-mile traveled, might actually be lower in hopping human-centered areas.”
In that last paragraph, the term “lively” might have different perceptions depending on the people looking at images of streets. In our case, the street scene in Divisoria, for example, can be described as “lively” yet it may be safer than what is perceived in other countries, especially in the west. I think we have to be careful with the kind of studies as described in the article and to be fair, they did say that their study is still at an exploratory stage.
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Is it possible to have zero traffic deaths in a year?
Is it possible to have zero traffic deaths in a year? Is it even probable? As it turns out, yes. Here’s an article on what Helsinki did in order to make this a reality:
Andrei, M. (August 1, 2025) “Helsinki went a full year without a traffic death. How did they do it?” ZME Science, https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/helsinki-went-a-full-year-without-a-traffic-death-how-did-they-do-it/ [Last accessed: 8/19/2025]
To quote from the article:
“A lot of factors contributed to this, but speed limits are one of the most important,” said Roni Utriainen, a traffic engineer with the city’s Urban Environment Division.
More than half of Helsinki’s streets have a speed limit of 30 km/h (approximately 20 mph). Half a century ago, the city barely had half of its area with a 50 km/h limit (30 mph). They gradually worked to reduce the speed limit, especially around schools and kindergartens.
Smarter street design also played a key role. Pedestrian and cycling infrastructure was prioritized for upgrades in recent years. More and more people started using public transit or bikes, or just walking. Substantial investments also made public transit more efficient and reliable.“Public transport in Helsinki is excellent, which reduces car use, and with it, the number of serious accidents,” Utriainen noted.
Another key component was bringing the police on board. Helsinki introduced automated traffic cameras and enforcement systems, which also helped bring down reckless driving.”
Rain and fog along Sumulong Highway
I just wanted to share a few photos of the conditions along Sumulong Highway these past days. With Felix Avenue and Ortigas Avenue Extension frequently flooded during this season, our commutes would usually be along Sumulong and Marcos Highways.
Despite the conditions of the road, there are still many who drive or ride recklessly. Speeding, weaving and cutting on slippery pavements increase the likelihood of crashes, which are preventable if only people will slow down and be more cautious.
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NAIA Terminal 1’s departure level driveway and drop-off
Weeks ago there was a fatal incident involving a motorist who plowed into well-wishers and passengers at NAIA Terminal 1. It was revealed. I finally had the chance to see the area for myself. I had not gone to Terminal 1 in a long while and especially after San Miguel Corporation had taken over the airport. The photos shared below were taken by my wife as we eased into the departure driveway of NAIA T1 one early morning last week.
Arriving at the west wing of the departure level of Terminal 1. Those are luggage carts lined up along the sidewalk. There are cones for the restricted area but these turned out to be to block vehicles from using the inner lane adjacent to the terminal.
West wing entrance of Terminal 1 – unlike Terminals 2 and 3, there is really no area for well-wishers. Note the bollards that are supposed to protect people from errant vehicles. We now know these were not built or installed to the required specifications for protection.
Vehicles are now parked parallel along the center of the driveway. Previously they were angled facing the terminal.
In terms of the space available, this significantly reduces the number of vehicles that can park to drop off passengers at the departure driveway.
Screenshot from Google Maps showing the previous layout of the drop-off parking. Note the vehicles pointing towards the terminal.
Passengers unloading their luggage behind the vehicles. There are markings for the vehicle slot but most just park parallel where space is available at the center of the driveway.
There is a buffer zone between the inner driveway lane and the drop-off lane. There were no vehicles using the inner lane but you can see in the photo that there are also curbside slots. Perhaps these are used during the busier times at the terminal?
Other passengers were also taking photos as their luggage were being unloaded from their vehicles.
This is where the fatal crash occurred. It seems the damage has been repaired and quickly and its business as usual at the airport.
NAIA authorities should already start retrofitting or reinstalling the bollards at the terminal. This would ensure the safety of passengers vs. vehicles that may or may not be under the control of their drivers. The effort to quickly address the concern is much appreciated but a long term solution needs to be implemented to prevent future crashes from occurring here and at other terminals.
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Bollards along Marcos Highway
I noticed that there are new bollards installed along Marcos Highway and particularly along the curbs at either side of the road. These were installed only recently, perhaps last month, nut I only got a few photos the other day. Its not safe to take photos while one is driving so I asked the wife to take a few ones that I could use here and perhaps also in some of the lessons I teach.
These bollards are installed along the curb where a couple of fatal crashes occurred in the past months.
The bollards are probably there to help improve road safety. They are reflectorized to you can’t miss them at night. Immediately behind them though are concrete barriers so hitting these will definitely damage the vehicle with a possibility of serious injuries to the vehicle occupants if not fatalities. Could there be a safer design intervention here? Perhaps that curbside lane can be converted into a protected bicycle lane. The barrier and the bike lane itself will be a buffer zone between motor vehicle traffic and active transport including pedestrians.
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Article share: on improving road safety in the midst of automobile dependency and sprawl
I am sharing another very informative article on road safety. While it is written for North American cities, most concepts and principles presented are applicable elsewhere and especially in cities and municipalities that tend to model their development after America. Increasing dependence on private vehicles (not just automobiles but including motorized two and three-wheelers) have resulted in increasing incidence of road crashes and though we have limited space, we tend to develop land as if we can afford sprawl and its consequences. Here is the article:
Litman, T. (April 25, 2025) “End Human Sacrifices to the Demanding Gods of Automobile Dependency and Sprawl,” Planetizen, https://www.planetizen.com/blogs/134838-end-human-sacrifices-demanding-gods-automobile-dependency-and-sprawl?utm_source=Planetizen+Updates&utm_campaign=d3fcb4d16b-newswire_05_05_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-6cce27a957-89144212&mc_cid=d3fcb4d16b&mc_eid=9ccfe464b1 [Last accessed: 16/05/2025]
To quote from the article:
“North American transportation agencies currently apply various older strategies, which should not be ignored, but to achieve additional crash reductions they need new strategies, such as those listed in the following table. The older strategies are targeted programs applied after most major transportation and land use planning decisions are made. New strategies include structural reforms involving more multimodal transportation planning, more compact development, transportation demand management incentives and parking policy reforms. This recognizes that all types of planning decisions affect transportation safety, and that many policies can increase safety in addition to other economic, social and environmental benefits.
The new paradigm expands traffic safety strategies to include structural reforms that increase transport system diversity and efficiency. They tend to provide many economic, social and environmental benefits in addition to safety.”
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Let’s act on road safety crisis!
May is Road Safety Month. It’s quite ironic that we started the month with some of the most gruesome crashes including one at SCTEX and another at NAIA. There is indeed a crisis on road safety but many are in denial or perhaps insensitive to the impacts of these crashes. We need to act and only together can we be most effective in reducing the risks for all road users.
So what can one do? How can one contribute to making roads safer? Sharing this poster from the Road Safety Research Laboratory (RSRL) of the National Center for Transportation Studies (NCTS) of the University of the Philippines:
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On gruesome road crashes and how they are reported
The past days have been terrible in terms of road crashes that have been reported. Of particular interest is the one last week involving four vehicles – a provincial bus slamming into 2 passenger vehicles against a stopped truck, and crushing both vehicles and their occupants. This was along SCTEX as vehicles were approaching a toll plaza. The trucks and passenger vehicles were stopped in a queue when a bus slammed into them. As of now the reports state at least 10 have lost their lives. One child miraculously survived the crash but lost both parents as per reports.
While mainstream media seems to be still conservative in how they report these incidents, social media offers much graphic, unedited content. Last Thursday and Friday, friends have shared posts by different people who have videoed the aftermath. It was gruesome and I will not describe them here nor share those videos that also appeared in my Facebook as reels. While there is the shock effect to the shared videos, one wonders whether these ultimately contribute to improving road safety or just add to what is now regarded as another category of porn (you’ve probably heard or read about food porn, tourism porn, shopping porn and poverty porn). These now have become more like spectacles that are viewed more for (sick) entertainment rather than to move people to action to address the road safety issues we face. While there are many responses offering comfort or prayers, how many would really act and actively call for safer transportation? As one friend exclaims – “Where’s the rage?”
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Caught (up) in traffic 