West Virginia DOT Roadway Departure 

Countermeasures Rapid Deployment

Executive Summary

Across the Nation, every State department of transportation (DOT) is challenged 

to wisely allocate resources. Agencies are also under constant pressure to 

increase efficiency in resource allocation. As demographics shift, challenges in 

managing human resources may also arise as the number of personnel with the 

expertise to execute agency plans and programs successively fluctuates. Facing 

this situation, the West Virginia DOT (WVDOT) undertook a unique, rapiddeployment initiative focused on reducing roadway departure (RwD) crashes by 

dedicating unspent Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP) funds

exclusively on RwD countermeasures. 

The Challenge 

Over the course of the 3 years prior to 2017, Federal-aid funds for highway 

safety improvements in West Virginia, while never lapsing, were steadily 

accumulating. These monies were part of the HSIP—a Federal Highway 

Administration (FHWA) program designed to reduce fatal and serious-injury 

crashes on public roads by funding safety improvements. States are required to 

disperse HSIP funding according to data-driven strategies defined in their 

Strategic Highway Safety Plans (SHSP). This helps FHWA ensure that States are 

directing budgetary resources where they have the greatest potential to drive 

down the most critical crash types in each State, maximizing positive safety 

outcomes. 

Prior to 2017, West Virginia’s HSIP pool had grown to about $70 million in 

undisbursed funds. The State’s inability to spend the surplus was primarily due 

to two major factors:

• Increasingly larger amounts of funding being allocated to the State. 

• Significant understaffing in the agency’s Highway Safety Planning and 

Implementation areas. 

West Virginia's HSIP is coordinated within WVDOT’s Traffic Engineering Division. 

When considering projects to be funded through the HSIP, WVDOT reviews and 

evaluates candidate projects, including those suggested by the agency’s safety 

partners, legislators, or the public. WVDOT’s initial review and evaluation of a 

potential project includes an analysis of crash data for the location, a field 

review of the site which may include a Road Safety Assessment, and the 

collection of any other information found appropriate to evaluate the proposed 

project.

In 2017, RwD crashes in 

West Virginia: 

Accounted for 65 percent 

of all fatal crashes.

Made up 56 percent of all 

serious injury crashes.

Resulted in 12 percent 

more fatalities than 

impaired driving, the 

second leading cause of 

roadway fatalities

in the State.
In WVDOT’s first step of their analysis, WVDOT staff develop a benefit-cost ratio and determine whether 

the candidate project is eligible for HSIP funding. The result of the benefit-cost ratio also assists with 

project prioritization. While this practice is not a specific requirement of the HSIP, the program’s 

guidance and WVDOT’s program elements support it as an additional eligibility tool. This is the first step 

to ensure the investment of safety program funds will likely result in a positive impact on highway safety 

and to properly place it within the overall program of projects. WVDOT officials estimate the project 

cost to fund the appropriate countermeasure for each identified concern. By dividing the monetized 

safety benefit by this cost, they arrive at the benefit-cost ratio. If this quotient exceeds 1, the project is 

further considered for funding.

Once the project is determined to be eligible and a positive safety benefit is determined to exist, the

Traffic Engineering Division selects and prioritizes projects for funding through the HSIP. After being 

selected for HSIP funding, staff select an HSIP funding category for the project and submit the 

appropriate programming documents. Projects are assigned to the State’s Statewide Transportation 

Improvement Program, which makes the HSIP funds available. The Mobility and Safety Section remains 

responsible for monitoring and balancing the use of HSIP funds and evaluating the effectiveness of a 

project following its completion. 

As might be expected, other functional areas outside of the Traffic Engineering Division were unfamiliar 

with the requirements for allocating HSIP funding.

1

 Additional labor resources to conduct project 

eligibility evaluations were not readily available because the nature of the work in deploying HSIP 

funding is so specialized, it falls outside the normal realm of design consultant work, and even in-house 

construction-inspection forces were not accustomed to administering the variety of contracts inherent 

in HSIP implementation.

2 As such, contract labor was not an ideal 

first choice to supplement State forces.

Amid this backdrop of an understaffed highway safety and design 

personnel in the DOT as well as unfamiliar consultant personnel

with this specific type of work, another critical issue was plaguing 

the State: RwD crashes were the leading cause of fatal and serious 

injury crashes on West Virginia roadways. In fact, in 2017 RwDs

accounted for 65 percent of all fatal crashes and 56 percent of all 

serious injury crashes in the State. In terms of fatalities, the 

percentage of RwD crashes was 12 percent higher than impaired 

driving, the second leading cause of roadway fatalities in the State.3

In many cases these two classes (RwD and impaired driving) of fatal 

crashes overlap, so an investment in one type may lead to a 

reduction in both classifications.

1

West Virginia Department of Transportation, West Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program 2016 Annual 

Report, (Charleston, WV: 2016). 2

Telephone Interview conducted with D. Hardy of the West Virginia Department of Transportation Mobility and 

Safety Section, March 5, 2020. 3

West Virginia Department of Transportation, 2017-2021 West Virginia Strategic Highway Safety Plan, Strategic 

Highway Safety Plan, (Charleston, WV: 2017).

Figure 1. Graphic. Recommended speed sign 

and guardrails before a curve. 

© WVDOT
Implementation Approach 

When considering how to best use HSIP 

funding, WVDOT structured its search around 

the question, “How can we save the most 

lives?” Focusing on their greatest problem (the 

urgent need for RwD crash mitigation) was the 

obvious answer. 

To build support for this large-scale focus on, 

and investment in, RwD safety improvements, 

the Traffic Engineering Division coordinated 

with the agency’s upper management to 

develop a targeted plan to spend all of the 

surplus in that area. For the first time in the 

history of the program, the vast majority of funds were specifically dedicated to the type of 

countermeasures that prevent or reduce the severity of RwD type crashes. A program of this magnitude 

necessitated that all Divisions within the DOT coordinate to ensure its success. A concerted effort was 

made to make sure that everyone involved within the DOT was aware of the HSIP RwD focus and every 

opportunity was taken to bring RwD safety to the forefront. During every internal safety or divisional 

conference, Traffic Engineering Division personnel were included to present a session on the topic of 

RWD crash mitigation. 

All of these efforts, in some way, have drawn attention to the importance of RwD safety. The agency’s 

upper management approved the conceptual plan with broad RwD countermeasures and funding 

allocations then requested a detailed plan for spending the unused HSIP funding on RwD. Faced with 

tens of millions of dollars in accrued funding, West Virginia safety professionals had to quickly devise a 

method to spend it all. 

In building a RwD safety program of such magnitude, the agency realized the importance of including all 

divisions within the DOT. This turned the undertaking into an agency priority rather than just a matter of 

significance to the Traffic Engineering Division. The support from the agency’s upper management was 

instrumental in making the effort a department-wide goal: a stark departure from the “silo” mentality 

under which staff had operated for decades with a program of projects that were indeed good projects 

but not a coordinated effort of related projects with the primary focus of reducing RwD crashes and 

their severity. 

Through frequent meetings and work sessions, the agency developed a two-phased plan under which 

the entire $70 million surplus would be spent in the first phase followed by an additional $10–15 million 

(plus $3–4 million for curves alone) in the second. 

All roads (except city streets) in West Virginia are State owned. DOT safety professionals coordinated 

with county leaders to make sure that each county had a planned RwD project programmed within its 

borders. DOT staff explained the priorities and project selection and stressed that all areas of the State 

would be touched with a RwD project. 

Figure 2. Graphic. Enhanced curve signing. 

© WVDOT
Safety Solutions

As early as 2017, WVDOT had been working 

closely with the FHWA Office of Safety to 

arrange for technical assistance in developing

a RwD Safety Implementation Plan (RwDSIP) 

compatible with the West Virginia SHSP. The 

technical assistance included development of 

a data analysis package, several technical 

training workshops, and a RwDSIP meeting 

with WVDOT safety personnel and other 

stakeholders. The overarching goal of this 

effort was developing a set of 

countermeasures, deployment levels, and 

costs aligned with the lane departure 

emphasis area recommendations in the SHSP. 

The plan included enhancements to the 

current safety program for WVDOT, including 

the following:

• Expansion of the safety program to 

systemically implement a large 

number of safety treatments at 

locations where they will prove most 

effective. The plan called for 

countermeasures such as enhanced 

signing and marking for curves, 

edge/shoulder rumble strips, roadway 

lighting, and centerline rumble strips, which comprise the most effective treatments for saving 

lives. 

• Inclusion of certain cost-effective treatments in current resurfacing and other surface 

transportation projects.

• High friction surface treatments to reduce wet and otherwise low friction pavement crashes. 

• Roadside safety improvements such as culvert and ditch improvements to flatten median crossslopes. 

• Select tree removal, utility pole relocation, and roadside fixed object crash prevention 

countermeasures such as tree or fixed object shielding.

• Adding new or upgraded barrier.

• Installing cable median barrier to reduce cross-median crashes.

This Plan, which was completed in January of 2019, provided recommendations on how WVDOT can 

implement these additions to the current safety practices effectively, how they can estimate the 

number of lives saved, and estimate the required investment to implement infrastructure improvements 

and education and enforcement initiatives.

Figure 3. Graphic. Cover for the West Virginia Roadway Departure Safety 

Implementation Plan. 

Source: FHWA
Overcoming Challenges

As with any effort of this magnitude, the agency experienced some obstacles along the way. The most 

pronounced was the task of programming so many projects in such a short amount of time. The agency 

overcame this through persistence, constant monitoring, and solving small problems before they could 

turn into larger ones. 

For example, WVDOT relied on the findings of the FHWA-sponsored RwDSIP, to garner management and 

FHWA support. WVDOT staff also brought the RwD issue to the forefront at every DOT function. They 

relied on the confidence of the agency’s management, who in turn were instrumental in motivating DOT 

professionals and maintaining morale during this fast-paced implementation. 

WVDOT also experienced some difficulty in securing the large team of design consultants necessary to 

supplement the expertise of their small safety staff and produce the volume of plans they required. 

Even when the agency did manage to contract with the needed professional services, the required 

skillset was so unique that the consultants had a steep learning curve. To overcome this significant 

hurdle, WVDOT sponsored an FHWA-led RwD safety training, which FHWA customized for WVDOT’s 

efforts (as FHWA does for most of their FHWA technical assistance). 

The consultants, once they completed the training, analyzed all of the highest-crash-rate US and WV 

(State) routes to identify appropriate countermeasures. WVDOT also hired two additional consultants to 

guide the plan production and ensure consistency.4

Other challenges WVDOT faced included having to train their own construction staff on how to inspect 

the projects with which they were somewhat unfamiliar. WVDOT’s final challenge was their construction 

costs, which were higher than average due to a lack of competition in the market.

4 West Virginia Department of Transportation, West Virginia Highway Safety Improvement Program 2019 Annual 

Report, (Charleston, WV: 2019). 

Figure 4. Graphic. Enhanced curve and speed signing along a West Virginia roadway. 

© WVDOT
Key Outcomes

To date, WVDOT has received some public feedback from users who have seen the improvements 

implemented elsewhere and want similar work performed in their counties. WVDOT reviews these 

suggestions on a case-by-case basis to determine their feasibility. This type of positive public feedback is 

a good indicator that West Virginia’s RwD safety improvement program was successfully implemented. 

WVDOT staff noted some lessons learned lessons along the way. Agency staff urge other States who are 

considering a similar endeavor to develop project development templates and have them in place 

before retaining consultants to perform design work. These templates greatly streamlined 

implementation efforts through inclusion of design and specification elements that were common to all 

projects. As such, designers did not have to repeat a great deal of work to get to the same result on the 

next job. The agency plans to continue applying this highly efficient development and implementation 

process in future years, especially for their second phase of RwD safety improvements. 

Given the recent, and in some cases, ongoing construction of these projects, WVDOT has not conducted 

a rigorous investigation of the program’s impact on crashes. They are confident however, that having 

dedicated so much time, funding, and proven countermeasures to the problem, their efforts will have 

impacted, and hopefully reduced, the State’s leading cause of fatal and serious injury crashes. 

For more information, please contact:

Joseph Cheung

Office of Safety

Joseph.Cheung@dot.gov

Dick Albin 

FHWA Resource Center

Dick.Albin@dot.gov

Donna Hardy

WVDOT Mobility and Safety

Donna.J.Hardy@wv.gov

FHWA-SA-22-064