A Road Safety Audit is a formal systematic road safety assessment of the road or road scheme carried out by an independent, qualified auditor or team of auditors who report on the project's accident potential for all kinds of road users.

Although the initial cost of the design will be a little higher, the expense of rebuilding subsequent black spots can be avoided. Accident costs can be a major component of total road costs when considering the entire economic life of a project when a significant safety problem is initially designed into the road.

The results of this work by PIARC Technical Committee on Road Safety (C13) on this subject are presented in this report together with information on current practice and experiences in different member states. Particularly the national experiences of Denmark, New Zealand, France and USA.