Citation

Scully JH, Newstead SV, Corben BF, Candappa NL. J. Australas. Coll. Road Saf. 2009; 20(4): 23-25.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, Australasian College of Road Safety)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The State Government of Victoria has implemented numerous accident black spot programs since the late 1970s. Commencing in the early 1990s, two substantial black spot programs, each funded by the Transport Accident Commission’s (TAC), have been completed. The first of these programs was implemented from 1992/93 to 1995/96 and had a budget of $85M. In total, there were 559 distinct sites treated under this program. A subsequent black spot program, with a budget of $240M, was implemented from 2000/2001 to 2003/2004. This program is generally referred to as the $240M Statewide Black Spot Program (SBP) and was made up of two distinct components; the Accident Black Spot component and the Potential Black Spot component. The 841 sites treated under the Accident Black Spot component were selected based on their poor history of casualty crashes over a number of preceding years. Similar methods of selecting sites for treatment were also used for earlier black spot programs. However the 285 sites treated under the Potential Black Spot component of the SBP were identified using an alternative method that did not rely on crash histories of sites. Of the $240M allocated to the Statewide Black Spot Program, approximately $20M was allocated to the Potential Black Spot component, with the remaining funds allocated to the Accident Black Spot component.

Over the years, numerous black spot programs have been evaluated. In each evaluation, it has been found that when sites were selected on the basis of their poor crash history the program reduced casualty crash frequencies at treated sites by a statistically significant amount. For example, when the $85M program was evaluated in 2001 by Newstead and Corben, it was estimated that casualty crash frequencies at treated sites were reduced by 26%, while the Accident Black Spot component of the SBP resulted in a 31% reduction in casualty crashes at treated sites. Until now, all the evaluations of black spot programs conducted in Victoria have focused on evaluating the extent to which treatments reduce the frequency of all types of casualty crashes at treated sites. The purpose of the project reported in summary form in this paper was to evaluate the effect of black spot programs on the frequency of motorcycle crashes at treated sites.