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Spring 2010

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Secondary Highway Incidents:

Assessing the Effectiveness of Safety Service Patrols

By Susan Kristoff

It’s an all too common scenario played out on the evening news: a minor highway accident results in additional, often more critical accidents.  These “secondary incidents” are often the result of poor visibility, short stopping distances, and drivers paying less attention when additional activity is present on the roadway.  The highways of the United States are monitored by a variety of state-funded safety patrols, whose purpose is to help motorists take care of their minor incidents safely, and their primary goal is to get traffic moving again quickly and in turn reduce the incidence of secondary accidents.

It may seem intuitive that safety service patrols help to reduce the number of secondary incidents from occurring, but many safety service patrol organizations only consider reduction in secondary incidents to be a side benefit, while keeping traffic moving is the primary focus… Read More


Profile: Harvey L. Heaton

Current Project Manager of Hawaii DOT’s Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) Pilot Project and veteran Manager of California’s Highway Patrol, Harvey Heaton talks to Safe Highway Matters about the criteria for creating, managing and evaluating a pilot program and shares with readers what years of experience has taught him about Safety Service Patrols… Read More


News & Notes

A look at developments of Safety Service Patrols from state to state… Read More


“Good Samaritan” Law at a Glance

Safety Service Patrol drivers are often the first responders to emergency situations that arise along America’s highways. The “Good Samaritan” Law aims to protect them and other first responders who help injured people during these emergency situations… Learn More


Driver Question of the Quarter

What “trick of the trade” does your patrol utilize? Read and Add Responses


Top 5 Summer Driving Hazards

Motorists associate the winter with poor driving conditions, higher accident rates and a need to drive slow and cautiously, while the summer season, brings bright skies and sunny weather, causing motorists to throw caution to the wind and to rediscover their need for speed. Safety Service Patrol operators know this common philosophy is erroneous… Read More


Editor’s Note

We at Safe Highway Matters and SafeHighways.org would like to extend a  thank you to all of our readers who contributed to this issue, as well as to those of you who provided feedback on previous issues… Read More

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