This guide is part of a series of Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) guides, collectively entitled “A Manual for Local Rural Road Owners.” The Manual provides information related to various safety topics of interest to local road managers and other practitioners that are responsible for owning, designing, operating, and maintaining local rural roads. The topics are presented in a way that will not be overwhelming for most local agencies, and regularly includes definitions and reasoning when appropriate to reinforce the concepts.

This particular guide addresses managing speed to improve safety in terms of identifying roadways with speeding issues; diagnosing concerns and identifying appropriate engineering, enforcement, and education countermeasures; and implementing the selected countermeasures. The guide primarily focuses on local rural roads; however, many of the procedures and processes can be applied to other urban or State-owned facilities.

A number of suggested countermeasures are discussed. For each, the guide addresses in simple terms where to use the countermeasure, why it works, and other considerations. Some countermeasures are accompanied by crash modification factors (CMFs) that can be used to estimate their effectiveness. The guide also walks through how to conduct a speed study.