what are critical conflicts? And why do we use these to inform road safety? It has been suggested that “For every passage of a motorist within the domain of a traffic facility, there is a chance set up for a collision to take place.” – Hauer. Building on this, each passage taken by a road user can be seen as a trial with a non-zero underlying chance of failure. It means that, no matter what, there is always a chance of a collision — even if the incident hasn’t happened yet.