This synthesis will be of interest to highway agency administrative and executive officers, risk managers, legal officials, as well as to highway design, traffic, and safety engineers, enforcement agency personnel, claims managers, and others concerned with managing tort liability programs in state transportation agencies. It describes the state of the practice with respect to the manner in which these agencies manage highway tort liability programs. Management of claims associated with highways, streets, and pedestrian facilities is the focus of this synthesis, which describes program elements, costs, staffing, risk avoidance, and management requirements. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes the design and implementation of procedures and techniques to manage tort liability programs. Much of the material in this synthesis is also applicable to managing risks associated with modes other than highways within the state transportation agency. There is also applicability to local highway agencies, toll authorities, and public transit agencies.

This synthesis will be of interest to state Department of Transportation (DOT) engineers, legal counsel, researchers, and administrators; transportation product development engineers, equipment manufacturers, and engineering and product manufacturer associations; state, regional, and federal product testing and evaluation centers; and attorneys of law interested in tort liability as it applies to highway innovations. The synthesis describes the current state of the practice for managing product liability to achieve highway innovations. Information for the synthesis was collected by surveying and interviewing state transportation agencies and private transportation related organizations and by conducting a literature search. This report of the Transportation Research Board identifies and discusses specific tort and product liability problems and principles, the specific tort liability experience of public agencies in state DOTs, and the tort liability experience of private organizations involved in introducing new products to the highway market. In addition, details on the litigation risks of highway innovation, the perceptions and perspectives of public agency and private sector personnel, and the state-of-the-art methods to confront litigation risks are presented. Finally, methodological comparisons and a general tort and product liability overview are included in the appendices.

Pre- and post-accident actions; trial preparation; loss mitigation program.

In 1985, at the height of the "tort liability crisis" and at the urging of administrators, engineers and lawyers, the Transportation Research Board (TRB) formed a task force to study and make recommendations regarding the question of tort liability faced by the State highway and transportation departments. The scope of A4T51: Task Force on Torts, was concerned with the law of torts as well as the administration of risk management by the states. The appointment period ended in January 1990 when its Final Report was made to the Group 4 Council.

Roadway Safety and Tort Liability, the second edition of Roadway Defects and Tort Liability, provides an extensive review of roadway design, roadway maintenance, traffic safety and human factors aspects of roadway safety. This edition has been expanded to include many important new topics. The first half examines the various structural components that make roads either safe or unsafe. It guides you through common roadway defects, explores historical standards, accident circumstances, and legal arguments. The second half provides an overview of lawsuits brought against states, and municipalities for accidents claimed to have been caused by one or more of the roadway safety topics discussed in the first section of the book.

Tort claims resulting from alleged highway defects have introduced an additional element in the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of highways. A survey of county governments in Iowa was undertaken in order to quantify the magnitude and determine the nature of this problem. This survey included the use of mailed questionnaires and personal interviews with County Engineers. Highway-related claims filed against counties in Iowa amounted to about $52,000,000 during the period 1973 through 1978. Over $30,000,000 in claims was pending at the end of 1978. Settlements of judgments were made at a cost of 12.2% of the amount claimed for those claims that had been disposed of, not including costs for handling claims, attorney fees, or court costs. There was no clear time trend in the amount of claims for the six-year period surveyed, although the amount claimed in 1978 was about double the average for the preceding five years. Problems that resulted in claims for damages from counties have generally related to alleged omissions in the use of traffic control devices or defects, often temporary, resulting from alleged inadequacies in highway maintenance. The absence of stop signs or warning signs often has been the central issue in a highway-related tort claim. Maintenance problems most frequently alleged have included inadequate shoulders, surface roughness, ice o? snow conditions, and loose gravel. The variation in the occurrence of tort claims among 85 counties in Iowa could not be related to any of the explanatory variables that were tested. Claims appeared to have occurred randomly. However, using data from a sub sample of 11 counties, a significant relationship was shown probably to exist between the amount of tort claims and the extensiveness of use of warning signs on the respective county road systems. Although there was no indication in any county that their use of warning signs did not conform with provisions of the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (Federal Highway Administration, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1978), many more warning signs were used in some counties than would be required to satisfy this minimum requirement. Sign vandalism reportedly is a problem in all counties. The threat of vandalism and the added costs incurred thereby have tended to inhibit more extensive use of traffic control devices. It also should be noted that there is no indication from this research of a correlation between the intensiveness of sign usage and highway safety. All highway maintenance activities introduce some extraordinary hazard for motorists. Generally effective methodologies have evolved for use on county road systems for routine maintenance activities, procedures that tend to reduce the hazard to practical and reasonably acceptable levels. Blading of loose-surfaced roads is an example of such a routine maintenance activity. Alternative patterns for blading that were investigated as part of this research offered no improvements in safety when compared with the method in current use and introduced a significant additional cost that was unacceptable, given the existing limitations in resources available for county roads.