Passively safe poles along roads as a measure to increase traffic safety

The intention of this paper is to try to influence the reduction of serious consequences in the case of traffic accidents that occur due to the collision of vehicles with poles along the roads. The paper explains the problem related to the existing equipment along the roads in the event of a vehicle collision and analyzes the safety of traffic on Croatian roads. As one of the measures to increase road safety, the possibility of using passively safe infrastructure, especially lighting poles, as an alternative to the existing equipment was presented. The properties that columns must satisfy in order to be considered passively safe according to the EN 127676:2019 standard are shown. The justification of the application of certain types of passively safe columns for a specific location was analyzed, considering the possibility of energy absorption.