Theme 3: Ensuring Infrastructure is Safe
Question (o): What scope is there for road design and maintenance to further improve safety?
There is substantial and underutilised scope for road design and maintenance to improve safety by systematically preventing predictable human error.
While vehicle safety systems have evolved significantly over the past fifty years, road infrastructure standards have changed comparatively little. Modern vehicles are designed on the assumption that human error will occur. Road infrastructure is not consistently engineered on the same principle.
A strategic shift is needed from compliance-led regulation toward proactive safety engineering that anticipates error and prevents predictable mistakes from escalating into fatal outcomes
Most serious collisions involve foreseeable human mistakes such as wrong-way entry, missed signals, misjudged crossings, or failure to respond to hazards. Infrastructure can be enhanced to reduce these risks through:
• Active enhancements to prohibition signs to improve visibility and recognition
• Upgraded Belisha beacons to warn drivers when pedestrians are present
• Additional red STOP indicators on signal posts for improved clarity
• Back-of-signal displays to clarify junction status
• Improved road marking standards to reduce ambiguity
• Integration of vehicle-activated warnings within existing signage
These improvements are technically achievable, cost-effective, and capable of delivering immediate safety benefits.
Safety-critical signage is frequently worn, obscured, or degraded. Unlike electrical highway assets, passive signs are not always subject to structured, auditable inspection regimes.
There is scope to:
• Classify safety-critical signage as controlled safety infrastructure
• Introduce nationally defined inspection standards
• Integrate asset management systems with documented risk assessments
• Ensure clear identification of the responsible authority at each high-risk site
This would align road infrastructure governance with the structured approach applied by the Health and Safety Executive in other safety-critical environments.
The fatal collision at the A5 Little Brickhill slip road
The coroner’s Prevention of Future Deaths report relating to the A5 Little Brickhill slip road sets out the safety concerns in detail.
illustrates systemic issues:
• Foreseeable wrong-way error was not prevented
• Passive signage proved insufficient
• Responsibility for the junction was unclear
Such ambiguity would be unlikely in other regulated safety systems.
The proposed Road Safety Investigation Branch presents an opportunity to embed systemic infrastructure review within national road safety governance.
To be effective, it should:
• Investigate recurring infrastructure risk patterns
• Examine risk assessments and maintenance records
• Identify national trends
• Be empowered to authorise practical safety improvements
There is considerable scope for road design and maintenance to improve safety through structured risk management, enhanced signage and signals, improved maintenance discipline, and stronger accountability.
Preventing predictable human error, preparing drivers for hazards, and providing clearer warnings can buy the critical seconds that determine whether an incident becomes a tragedy.
The tools, technology, and regulatory frameworks already exist. The opportunity now is to apply them decisively to road infrastructure.
My name is Derek Cozens, and I am a Fellow of the Association for Road Risk Management (FARRM). I spent over 30 years working on an industrial chemical site, where I witnessed firsthand the systematic and methodical safety improvements introduced by the Health and Safety Executive.
In 2009, I designed a low-cost display technology solution to enhance the visibility of No Entry warning signs. The system used slim pole-mounted displays with a unique illumination pattern, creating a highly recognisable warning visible across a wide 180-degree viewing angle. This allowed drivers to perceive the signs in peripheral vision, identify their location, and clearly associate them with the correct roadway.
Although the authorities at the time did not adopt the solution, the experience highlights the potential for relatively simple, low-cost technological interventions to prevent predictable human error on the road network.
This submission focuses on opportunities to apply engineering, technology, and risk-based governance to improve road infrastructure and prevent human error.
Road infrastructure has not kept pace with advances in vehicle safety. While cars and trucks now include sophisticated safety systems designed to mitigate human error, road layouts, markings, signage, and junction engineering standards remain largely unchanged, reflecting regulatory approaches developed decades ago.
The imbalance creates significant opportunities to improve safety by designing roads that anticipate human error, provide unambiguous guidance, and actively prevent predictable mistakes from escalating into serious or fatal incidents.
Human error is a contributing factor in most serious incidents, including wrong-way entry, misjudged crossings, missed signals, and failure to respond to hazards. Road infrastructure can be actively improved to reduce the consequences of these errors.
Key opportunities include:
Pedestrian crossings and signals
• Belisha beacons could incorporate displays that alert drivers when someone is at or approaching the crossing.
• Traffic lights could be enhanced with additional red STOP indicators lower on the posts.
• Back-of-signal displays could clarify junction status to approaching drivers
Prohibition signs and road markings
• Active enhancements to prohibition signs to improve visibility, recognition and authority
• Road marking standards could be updated to reduce ambiguity and improve directional clarity.
Vehicle-activated warnings
• Existing signs could be upgraded to deliver speed-activated warnings, hazard alerts, junction or bend notifications, reducing duplication and improving cost-effectiveness.
The overall approach
• A structured, evidence-based programme of research, development and implementation should systematically identify, test and deploy measures that address predictable human error
The fatal collision at the A5 Little Brickhill slip road in Milton Keynes provides a clear example of the type of incident that modernised road engineering and risk management should be designed to prevent.
Following the deaths of two women after a vehicle entered a one-way slip road in the wrong direction, the Assistant Coroner issued a Regulation 28 Prevention of Future Deaths report identifying specific matters of concern.
The coroner concluded that:
• The slip road layout was sufficiently wide and visually ambiguous to allow drivers to mistake the exit for an entry.
• The positioning and clarity of the No Entry signage did not make it sufficiently clear which carriageway was prohibited.
• The location was unlit at night, reducing the effectiveness of passive signage.
• Similar wrong-way manoeuvres had occurred previously, demonstrating a foreseeable and recurring risk rather than an isolated human error.
The coroner formally stated that action should be taken to prevent future deaths and wrote to both National Highways and Milton Keynes City Council requiring a response. The need to contact multiple authorities highlighted ambiguity regarding responsibility for risk ownership at the site.
This case illustrates systemic weaknesses that this submission seeks to address:
• Foreseeable human error was not mitigated by layered safeguards.
• Passive, static signage proved insufficient in conditions of ambiguity and darkness.
• Organisational accountability and documented risk management processes were unclear.
The incident cannot reasonably be viewed solely as a matter of individual driver behaviour.
It demonstrates how infrastructure that does not actively prevent error can allow predictable mistakes to escalate into fatal outcomes.
Many safety-critical signs are worn, obscured, or degraded. This reduces their effectiveness in preventing error. While electrical installations are maintained under structured and auditable inspection regimes, signage is not consistently subject to equivalent controls.
Opportunities include:
• Classifying safety-critical signage as controlled infrastructure
• Routine condition checks and rapid replacement of damaged or obscured signs
• Logging inspections digitally for audit and accountability
Integrating asset management with risk assessment would ensure clear ownership of safety-critical locations, documented inspections, and automated review of near-miss or incident data.
This would allow coroners and the RSIB to access risk assessments promptly, improving accountability and enabling timely interventions.
The RSIB could provide independent oversight of systemic infrastructure risks, examine risk assessments and maintenance records, identify recurring hazards, and authorise practical safety improvements. For this to be effective, RSIB must have clear statutory authority to recommend and, where appropriate, require evidence-based infrastructure improvements.
Significant opportunities exist to reduce human error through infrastructure improvements:
• Enhanced signage and signals to deliver active, timely warnings
• Road marking improvements to reduce ambiguity
• Layered controls at high-risk sites
• Vehicle-activated or speed-sensitive warnings integrated with existing infrastructure
• Integration of asset and risk management for full oversight
A structured program can systematically address predictable errors and save lives at relatively low cost.
Preventing deadly errors, preparing drivers for hazards, and providing clear, unambiguous warnings can buy vital seconds that make the difference between life and death. The UK has the tools, technology, and regulatory mechanisms to achieve this.
Road engineering, maintenance, and technology provide substantial untapped opportunities to proactively reduce human error. Infrastructure should be managed explicitly as a safety system, with clear risk ownership, auditable maintenance and a national mechanism capable of driving timely improvements.
Road safety will improve most effectively when infrastructure is engineered, maintained and governed on the explicit assumption that human error is inevitable and must be systematically prevented from becoming fatal.
1, What formal requirement exists for highway authorities to maintain documented, site-specific risk assessments for high-risk junctions, slip roads and complex layouts.
2, How does the Department for Transport ensure that safety-critical signage is subject to defined, auditable inspection and maintenance standards comparable to other regulated safety systems?
3,What mechanism exists to integrate asset management systems with infrastructure risk assessments across all highway authorities?
4, When will the Road Safety Investigation Branch be placed on a statutory footing, and will it have authority to mandate or formally require infrastructure safety improvements?
5, What structured process exists to trial and authorise low-cost technological enhancements to existing road signs and signals where foreseeable human error has been identified?
February 2026