SWOV

Human errors play a vital role in road crashes. This paper deals with the prevention of human errors by proper road planning, road design and improving existing roads within the framework of the Dutch 'Sustainable Safety' vision. This vision focuses on three design principles for road networks and for roads and streets: functionality, homogeneity, and predictability. A minimum safety level should be defined and agreed upon by all road authorities, national, regional, and local.

This thesis focuses on the question of how the road environment (road design and network characteristics) affects road safety for cyclists through effects on risk and exposure to risk. In this thesis, the term ‘road design’ is used to denote the location level (e.g. intersection design) while the term ‘network characteristics’ is used in relation to the network level (e.g. the presence of a road hierarchy and road classification). Road design plays a role in cyclists’ crash and injury risk. Network characteristics affect mode and route choice (Heinen et al.

Roundabouts are safer than intersections because they reduce the number of potential conflicts between road users and lower the driving speed. In the Netherlands, replacing an intersection by a roundabout is estimated to reduce the number of severe casualties by approximately 46%. The traffic flow is usually better on roundabouts than on intersections, and exhaust emission and noise decrease, certainly when compared with signalized intersections. Roundabouts, however, take up more space.