Road safety engineering: an effective tool in the fight against whiplash injuries

Road safety engineering can play an integral part in the prevention of whip lash injuries. While improvements to vehicle design can reduce the severity of whiplash injuries when a crash occurs, improvements to road safety can prevent whiplash-inducing crashes from occurring in the first place. Whipla sh injuries are most commonly associated with rear end crashes. Unfortunate ly, rear end crashes are also the most common type of crash at urban signal ized intersections, where the majority of crashes occur in British Columbia , Canada. The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), through the road improvement program, has been funding road improvements in order to r educe the frequency of collisions at high crash locations in British Columb ia. Several road safety engineering countermeasures specifically targeted a t rear end collisions have been researched and deployed. These countermeasu res include simple and affordable solutions such as signal visibility enhan cements, as well as complex and expensive solutions such as intersection ge ometric upgrades. When appropriately used, these countermeasures have prove n to be extremely cost-effective in reducing the frequency of rear end coll isions. Widespread application of signal visibility enhancements is now bei ng pursued to further decrease the risk of rear end collisions and whiplash injuries. Costs are the direct cost of the ICBC portion of the investment and benefits are only those associated with reduced insurance claims over a 2-year period. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.