Research Report 296 Relation between surface texture of roads and accidents

Publication Year

1991

Document Status

Current

Abstract

It has long been known that the skidding resistance of a road falls at high speeds if the surface has an inadequate texture depth. However, it has not been possible to assess the extent to which poor texture depth contributes to accidents because texture depth could not be measured on a large scale on in-service roads. The development of the laser-based, high-speed texture meter (HSTM) has made such measurements possible. A study is described in which HSTM was used to make measurements on a wide range of roads which have been used to relate texture depth (macrotexture) directly to accidents.

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