Abstract
Road safety remains a major global challenge, with more than 1.19 million fatalities recorded annually and persistent disparities between regions in terms of crash risk and infrastructure performance. Recent international reports indicate that progress in reducing road deaths has slowed, both globally and in the European Union, where 19,940 fatalities were registered in 2024—only a 2% decrease from the previous year. Romania continues to exhibit one of the highest fatality rates in the EU, with 4,527 serious crashes and 1,545 deaths reported in 2023. The PIARC methodologies (2003; updated 2025) provide a robust analytical framework based on reactive and proactive approaches, combining crash-based diagnostics with infrastructure-focused evaluations, including geometric consistency, friction management and the Potential for Improvement (PI) indicator. Recent studies further reinforce the established relationship between pavement condition, skid resistance, and crash occurrence, while technological advances—such as AI-based road anomaly detection—offer new avenues for proactive risk management. Integrating PIARC principles with national crash data and current research on infrastructure performance offers a coherent basis for modernizing Romania’s road safety strategies and prioritizing interventions with the greatest expected impact on reducing crash frequency and severity.