The loss of vehicle stability in horizontal curves is a clear indicator of horizontal alignment design inconsistency, which can easily be quantified by determining the margins of safety. The doctoral thesis presents an overview of current horizontal alignment design guidelines and most important research of the design consistency concept. The following significant shortcomings in current road design practice were noticed: selection of unrealistic relevant speeds, the assumption that drivers follow a path with a radius equal to curve radius and the application of too simple vehicle model, i.e. basic point mass model. To overcome the observed limitations, the new consistent design approach has been developed, with an emphasis on horizontal curves. The new approach is based on the margin of safety concept, improved in terms of using the bicycle vehicle model in combination with more realistic values of speed and vehicle path radii. The bicycle vehicle model considers longitudinal load transfer, on individual axles, due to grade and speed changes, i.e. factors affecting margins of safety that are completely ignored by the simple point mass model used so far. To collect the driver behaviour data, an experimental investigation was conducted on a segment of the two-lane state road DC1 (Croatia). Individual speeds and vehicle path radii achieved by representative sample of drivers were recorded with a highfrequency GPS device. Based on the analysis of recorded data, the implementation of naturalistic driver behaviour in the road design process is proposed through regression models for predicting operating speeds (for tangents and horizontal curves) and through the equation for calculating the critical path radius. The improvement of the safety margin concept has created the basis for designing horizontal curves with high level of safety, both for the values of available friction on modern pavements as well as for future measurements. Based on operating speed consistency criterion and improved safety criterion related to driving dynamic consistency, the graphs of applicable adjacent horizontal curve radii were developed. The results obtained showed that the values of minimum horizontal curve radii need to be increased and, finally, this analysis has provided a physical explanation of the most common causes of accidents in sharp horizontal curves.