A Flaw in the Foundation: The Vienna Convention's Definition of "Intersection" (Road Safety Briefing #3)
Year: 2026
Type: report
Abstract: This briefing challenges the very foundation of international road-traffic law: the definitions in the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, binding in more than 90 countries. Article 1(h) defines an "intersection" as any level crossroad, junction or fork — a definition the author argues flatly contradicts geometry, since a junction or a fork contains no point where vehicle paths actually cross. Because a rigorous analysis cannot start from flawed premises, an inexact definition at the base of the Convention propagates error through every downstream rule and every accident analysis built upon it. The briefing calls for the Convention's foundational definitions to be corrected to match exact science. Part of a series of technical road-safety briefings addressed to the European Commission (DG MOVE), the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC), and the European Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism (TRAN).
Author: Fadur, Daniel
Language: English
Topic: Traffic and Road Safety
Subfield: Safety, Risk, Reliability and Quality
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204453768