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A long fall stopped by an early guardrail, ca. 1920. Guardrails, median barriers, or other physical objects can help reduce the consequences of an accident or minimize damage. As the understanding of these contributory factors have improved, there have been attempts to mitigate the worse of the physical road conditions, which can now include:
- road improvements, with redesigned junctions and grade separated interchanges, and through-traffic bypassing pedestrian areas
- rest areas and motorway service stations
- clear signage and signals for road users and pedestrians
- wide multi-lane roads with divided carriageways
- treatments of the road surface to improve skid resistance, such as applying special mastics at identified accident 'black spots' or road drains and grooving for rainwater runoff
- calming traffic in potentially hazardous areas to reduce the risk of collisions and to minimize the severity of injuries
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