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The aim of the Road Safety Auditors Register is to have on record a listing of suitably skilled and experienced consultants to respond to project briefs for road safety audits. Eligibility for registration is based on experience and is subject to auditors providing adequate documentation to verify themselves against the criteria.

Those who qualify for levels 1 or 2 will be registered as Road Safety Auditors.

Those who qualify for level 3 will be registered as Senior/Lead Road Safety Auditors. Such a category will be useful in developing road safety audit teams. It is expected that only Senior/Lead Road Safety Auditors will be engaged as leaders of audit teams.

All registrants will be expected to certify maintenance of knowledge and experience by participating in a minimum number of audits and/or training courses.

This accreditation scheme is designed for Australian road safety auditing practice. Overseas road safety auditors who wish to be accredited under this scheme are required to attend an Australian approved road safety audit training course and undertake road safety audits which are based on Australian conditions.

A Road Safety Audit is a formal examination of an existing or future road or traffic project, or any project which interacts with road users, in which an independent, accredited auditor reports on the project's accident/crash potential and safety performance. The objectives of road safety audit are to identify potential safety risks for road users and to ensure that measures to eliminate or reduce the risks are fully considered. Road safety audit works in two ways to ensure that safety is improved, namely by removing preventable crash producing elements at the design stage and by mitigating the effects of any remaining risks by the inclusion of suitable crash-reducing elements.

Audits may be undertaken at one or more phases of a project. There are five opportunities at which audits may be undertaken:

1. Concept / Planning
2. Preliminary design
3. Detailed design
4. Pre opening or during construction
5. Audit once under 'normal' operation

A road safety audit can also be carried out during the construction phase of a scheme (roadwork traffic management), during major maintenance works as part of land use developments, for the review of an existing road scheme, and for special road user needs/groups. It is considered that the earlier the audits are undertaken, the easier it will be to incorporate any recommendations into the final project. Note that, in practice, a 'combination' audit is possible whereby the audit may overlap between stages, eg detailed design/ partial construction, although this particular example is not desirable as a 'first' audit in a project.

As a guide, for any project which involves a change in road alignment or the erection / alteration of roadside structures, a Road Safety Audit should be carried out at the end of the detailed design stage at the very least. For complex projects, involving high volumes of traffic, at least two audits should be carried out during the life of the project.

Audits and the resulting recommendations are prepared with the single focus of maximising safety and generally compromises between safety and efficiency and/or cost are not considered by the auditors.

The objectives of road safety auditing in Local Government are to:

• Encourage good road safety practice
• Improve Local Government personnel's knowledge of road safety in general
• Adopt a pro-active approach to road safety and crash prevention
• Develop accredited Local Government personnel in road safety auditing
• Achieve improved economic returns (risk management, benefit cost ratio of project)
• Address safety and design issues prior to construction commencing to minimise costly changes after project completed
• Assess safety issues on roads before crashes occur, and
• Provide a coordinated and standardised approach to road safety auditing within Local Government and the RTA