Road Warrior

  — for Joseph Hummer, when it comes to road design, “we don’t have to settle”

Dr. Joseph Hummer’s research on road signs, systems and markings helps keep drivers safe. (Photo: Roger Winstead)

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“I think the first traffic fatality in this country was in 1902, shortly after the invention of the automobile,” said Dr. Joseph E. Hummer, professor of civil, construction, and environmental engineering at NC State. “We’ve been killing people on the roads for over 100 years now, and we don’t have to.”

Hummer has built his career around improving road systems and motorists’ safety, from his current research into road signs and pavement markings to his best-known research into the use of what he calls the unconventional intersections and interchanges, which he considers his niche in the field.

“People look at me like I’m nuts when I say I can improve intersections and interchanges,” he said, “because we’ve been doing intersections over 100 years and interchanges for 80. What’s left to learn? But there are always different and better ways to do even the most dry and mundane things.”

Every year, Hummer said, 40,000 to 45,000 people die on our roads.

“The number of fatalities in the U.S. has remained steady, and the number of fatalities worldwide has gotten worse,” he said. “So really, we’re further from solving the problem.”

Through his work, Hummer has been finding solutions. His reward is seeing innovative designs gain some traction and get put to use.

Just one of the project designs picking up popularity is the super-street, where dangerous left turns are eliminated at intersections so that traffic on a main road flows in conventional lanes and left-turning traffic from side streets use median U-turns. It’s a design that came to his attention back in 1992 when he did his first project at NC State, and he’s been pushing it ever since. He’s finally seeing results. Now there are five or six functioning super-streets in North Carolina, he said.

“And they’re working,” Hummer said, “they’re working like we predicted 15 years ago.”

Next to designing creative solutions for these “mundane” traffic problems, Hummer hopes to pass on his love of his profession and his drive for improvement to his students.

“They enjoy working on designs like these in class,” Hummer said. “I get comments like, ‘This is why I decided to be a civil engineer.’”

Hummer is currently researching the wear patterns of pavement markings—the painted lines, arrows and messages that note lanes, directions and warnings—in order to advise transportation authorities on when and how to best replace them. He recently finished conducting similar research on road signs as part of an ongoing and multi-stage project with the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Redesigning roads is a preventative measure, Hummer said. It’s a lesson he picked up from Ezra Hauer, a professor at the University of Toronto and one of the world’s foremost experts in highway safety.

“He has shown,” Hummer said, “that improvement is always possible. That we don’t have to settle for killing 40,000 people a year. In fact, it’s the reverse—it’s an outrage.”

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