The purpose of this report is to present uniform guidelines for the crash testing of both permanent and temporary highway safety features and recommended evaluation criteria to assess test results. Guidelines are also presented for the in-service evaluation of safety features. These guidelines and criteria, which have evolved over the past 40 years, incorporate current technology and the collective judgment and expertise of professionals in the field of roadside safety design. They provide: (1) a basis on which researchers and user agencies can compare the impact performance merits of candidate safety features, (2) guidance for developers of new safety features, and (3) a basis on which user agencies can formulate performance specifications for safety features.

MASH is an update to and supersedes NCHRP Report 350, Recommended Procedures for the Safety Performance Evaluation of Highway Features, for the purposes of evaluating new safety hardware devices. MASH does not supersede any guidelines for the design of roadside safety hardware, which are contained within the AASHTO Roadside Design Guide (see related item).