Engineer John Spathonis knew he had to act when he saw a photo of a fatal car crash in which a road sign had pierced the vehicle's windscreen.

A 29-year-old woman had died in the crash near Townsville in north Queensland in 2014.

Mr Spathonis said he and his colleagues at the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads started looking at the occurrence of deaths from what's known as "sign-spearing" — when a road sign penetrates a car's windscreen upon impact during a crash.

"Our records indicate that we've had three fatalities [involving sign-spearing] in recent years and another serious accident. So considering in Queensland we have 250 fatalities a year, it's a statistic that doesn't get highlighted."

"We contacted our counterparts in Transport New South Wales to see whether they had a similar problem," Mr Spathonis said.

"They had a similar number of fatalities spanning a similar number of years."

Transport New South Wales agreed to join the research project.

Mr Spathonis said the team had little information to go on, with limited research having being conducted in the field.

"At the crash lab in New South Wales, they crashed a lot of vehicles into a lot of obstacles, but they had never crashed vehicles into signs and no one else in the world [had done so].

"We were starting from scratch, so it was a learning experience," he said.

Queensland engineer John Spathonis helped to develop safer designs for road signs. ( ABC: Timothy Swanston )

Simple solution

After more than two years of research, Mr Spathonis said engineers came up with a simple solution involving strengthened brackets and fasteners to prevent signs from sliding along poles.

"All the components required for a retrofit we're getting made up into a kit, so people don't have to source bits and pieces from all over the place, they can just order a kit and that will be enough," he said.

"This information is being disseminated internally and through local government and sign manufacturers."

The research will also be shared with other states and New Zealand.

Queensland upgrades road signs

The Queensland Government will spend $1.6 million on a safety program to improve signs in high-risk areas.

Transport Minister Mark Bailey said he wanted to do all he could to save lives.

"Whenever you can see some kind of structural deficiency that endangers people's lives on the road, you've got to act on it, it's a fantastic piece of research," he said.

"It's pretty shocking to see what a simple sign can do, piercing the cabin of a car at high speed at 100 kilometres per hour.

"We want to do everything we can to increase safety for our drivers right across Queensland."

Mr Spathonis said most motorists would not notice the improvements.

"They can't see the safety benefits because most of the things we do are hidden. It's just taken for granted that we're doing our job," he said.

Upgrades to road signs will be finished by mid-2019.