The provision for and management of road safety is a core responsibility of agencies in charge of transportation infrastructure. Agencies can best fulfill their mission through a complete understanding of explicit objective measures of: capital and operating cost, time, traffic operations, environmental consequences, and safety.

The HSM will provide the best factual information and tools available, in a useful form, to facilitate roadway planning, operations, and maintenance decisions based upon explicit consideration of their safety consequences.

The development of the Highway Safety Manual is under the auspices of the Transportation Research Board, a unit of The National Academies, and is under the direct purview of the Task Force for the Development of the Highway Safety Manual.