Improving Safety for Slow Moving Vehicles on Iowa's High Speed Rural Roadways
Horse drawn vehicle on a public road in Davis County, Iowa
Researcher(s)
Principal investigator: Neal Hawkins, 515-294-2744, hawkins@iastate.edu (project list)
Co-principal investigators:
- Shauna Hallmark, 515-294-5249, shallmar@iastate.edu (project list)
Other authors: Cari Kinzenbau, Shauna Hallmark
Student researcher: Caroline Kinzenbaw
Project status
Completed
Start date: 06/01/07
End date: 11/30/08
Publications
Report: May 2009, http://www.intrans.iastate.edu/reports/SMV.pdf 12.9 mb (*pdf)
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Sponsor(s)/partner(s)
Sponsor(s):Iowa Department of Transportation
About the research
Abstract: Among the variety of road users and vehicle types that travel on U.S. public roadways, slow moving vehicles (SMVs) present unique safety and operations issues. SMVs include vehicles that do not maintain a constant speed of 25 mph, such as large farm equipment, construction vehicles, or horse-drawn buggies. Though the number of crashes involving SMVs is relatively small, SMV crashes tend to be severe. Additionally, SMVs can be encountered regularly on non-Interstate/non-expressway public roadways, but motorists may not be accustomed to these vehicles.
This project was designed to improve transportation safety for SMVs on Iowas public roadway system. This report includes a literature review that shows various SMV statistics and laws across the United States, a crash study based on three years of Iowa SMV crash data, and recommendations from the SMV community.