The role of traffic engineers may be compared to that of the medical profession in protecting the public. As trained professionals, traffic engineers look at the symptoms of general traffic conditions, and to make a competent diagnosis, they take traffic counts, analyze accident statistics, study speed data, examine roadway conditions, conduct research and study what other professionals are doing and the results they have achieved.
Just as the doctors' decisions are accepted in matters regarding health, even though the medicine may be bitter or the needle painful, so should the decisions of professional traffic engineers be given the prime consideration.