Safety Benefits

Sign enhancement produces measurable benefits in safety and lower costs.

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The pressure of maintenance adds stress to already lean, dedicated internal resources. Communities are hard-pressed to find the human and financial resources to make sign enhancement the required priority.

• Crews are at risk themselves and raise risks to the driving public when required to maintain lighted signs and weathered reflective signs
• Costs continually increase to maintain current systems
• Life cycle costs provide a realistic assessment of total expenditures
• Costs to illuminate signs can be significantly reduced when replaced with high-performance retroreflective sheeting that eliminates electric engineering and energy expense. IDOT predicts that "the state could see savings of nearly $1 million a year in sign maintenance and energy costs."¹

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Investing in enhanced signage saves in accident costs. Upgrading signs from ASTM Type I to ASTM Types III and IX delivers benefit-to-cost savings.

Benefit:Cost

• 33 : 1²
• 159 : 1 – 299 : 1³
• Cut crashes 25%⁴ to 42%⁵

HSIP funding and 3M support are available to initiate a sign enhancement program that improves traffic safety by reducing injuries and accidents.

• IDOT Announces New, Reflective Signs to Improve Safety on Illinois Roadways and Save Money
• "Low Cost Traffic Engineering Improvements: A Primer" (FHWA)

¹ http://www.dot.state.il.us/press/r101106.html
² Dedeitch, ITE 2004 Conference Proceedings
³ Ripley, Quantifying the safety benefits of traffic control devices...
⁴ Bagdade, ITE 2004 Conference Proceedings
⁵ Ford, Evaluation of low-cost program of road system traffic safety reviews for county highways, TRB Record # 1819, 2003