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PREFACE

This Roadside Design Guide was developed by the AASHTO Subcommittee on Design, Task Force for Roadside Safety under the chairmanship of David L. Little, P.E. This document presents a synthesis of current information and operating practices related to roadside safety and is written in dual units-metric and U.S. Customary units. This publication supersedes the 1996 AASHTO publication of the same name.

The roadside is defined as that area beyond the traveled way (driving lanes) and the shoulder (if any) of the roadway itself. Consequently, roadside delineation, shoulder surface treatments, and similar on-roadway safety features are not extensively discussed. While it is a readily accepted fact that safety can best be served by keeping motorists on the road, the focus of this guide is on safety treatments that minimize the likelihood of serious injuries when a driver does run off the road.

A second noteworthy point is that this document is a guide. It is not a standard, nor is it a design policy. It is intended for use as a resource document from which individual highway agencies can develop standards and policies. While much of the material in the guide can be considered universal in its application, there are several recommendations that are subjective in nature and may need modification to fit local conditions. However, it is important that significant deviations from the guide be based on operational experience and objective analysis.

To be consistent with AASHTO's A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets, design speed has been selected as the basic speed parameter to be used in this guide. However, since the design speed is often selected based on the most restrictive physical features found on a specific project, there may be a significant percentage of a project length where that speed will be exceeded by a reasonable and prudent driver. There will be other instances where roadway conditions will prevent most motorists from driving as fast as the design speed. Because roadside safety design is intended to minimize the consequences of a motorist leaving the roadway inadvertently, the designer should consider the speed at which encroachments are most likely to occur when selecting an appropriate roadside design standard or feature.

This 2001 edition of the AASHTO Roadside Design Guide has been updated to include hardware that has met the evaluation criteria contained in the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 350, "Recommended Procedures for the Safety Performance Evaluation of Highway Features.'' For the most part, roadside hardware tested and accepted under guidelines that are no longer applicable has not been included in this edition. Another significant change from the earlier editions of the Guide is the replacement of the benefit-cost analysis program ROADSIDE with the more user-friendly program called the Roadside Safety Analysis Program (RSAP). Detailed information on RSAP is included in Appendix A, but the program itself, including a detailed users guide, will be distributed separately.

Design values are presented in this document in both metric and U.S. Customary units. The relationship between the metric and U.S. Customary values is neither an exact (soft) conversion nor a completely rationalized (hard) conversion. The metric values are those that would have been used had the guide been presented exclusively in metric units; the U.S. Customary values are those that would have been used if the guide had been presented exclusively in U.S. Customary units. Therefore, the user is advised to work entirely in one system and not to attempt to convert directly between the two.

The reader is cautioned that roadside safety policy, criteria, and technology is a rapidly changing field of study. Changes in the roadside safety field are certain to occur after this document is published. Efforts should be made to incorporate the appropriate current design elements into the project development. Comments from users of this guide on suggested changes or modifications resulting from further developmental work or hands-on experience will be appreciated. All such comments should be addressed to the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, Engineering Program, 444 North Capitol Street NW, Suite 249, Washington, DC 20001.