Highway Barriers

[UselessPickles]

They will send you here. I'll see you there :devil:

 

[wheatonFJR]

They will send you here. I'll see you there :devil:

Or they may send you [SIZE=24pt]here[/SIZE].

Either way...it will send you to some place before your time.

Be careful "out there!"

 

[MotorToad]

We have these all over Texas on the interchange "flyovers". About once or twice a year somebody looses it in the corner and invariably gets pitched over the top of them and then falls 100-150 feet to the ground below. The bike stays on the freeway. You don't get kicked back into traffic, you go over the top because of your relative elevation above them.

There's a nice spot on I-110 in Pensacola where people like to get tossed over the side (they miss a graveyard by about 200', talk about a time-saver...) and land in the Civic Center parking lot. They go over because they're on a curve and hit it more straight at it. IMO hitting one of these at a glancing angle will spit you off the side unless you're lucky and save it. When the tires reach an incline, they like to ride up it, known as an "edge trap."

 

[Patriot]

those cable dividers are going up everywhere in LA they are widening the interstate and there's no ground between the different direction highways.

They give me the willys. When first raised and installed, I encountered a traffic slow down and there was a red pickup on it's roof caught by the cables and partially under the fence. My thought was "they are great for the other side oncoming vehicles, but sucketh for any vehicle that hits it from this side." I guess that's just the point.

 

[kulwen]

I have been concern about the wire barriers for some time. Two years ago I saw some show on Discovery that quoted some report from the NHTSA that indicated over 40% of the wire barriers were incorrectly installed. This is going to be hard to explain, but I will try. Imagine a road way where the center medium was lower then the road way to allow rain to drain off the road. If, the wire barrier was installed at a lower height then the roadway the effectiveness of the wire barrier was reduced, and could cause a higher number of deaths.

If the vehicle leaves the road way, gravity grabs hold, and the front end of the car dips below the cables this would often result in the cables sliding up the hood with two outcomes. One, the cable enters the passenger compartment, two, the vehicle goes under the cables into oncoming traffic. In addition, If, after gravity played a part and the vehicle's suspension rebounded the vehicle's bumper could clear the top of the cables and continue into oncoming traffic. I am sad to say, after looking many times I have been unable to find this information on the NHTSA website.

Paragraph two of this link give an example of a SUV clearing the cables and going into oncoming traffic.

https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres/DFF20...eMedian_Ch3.pdf

An example of a motorcyclist hitting a wire barrier:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article....jectid=10471320

More to read:

https://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-01/es...9/05-0095-O.pdf

This may be the best one to read. It compares many types of barriers.

https://www.monash.edu.au/muarc/reports/atsb201.pdf

https://www.network.mag-uk.org/barriers/WRB-reportV9.pdf

https://www.fema.ridersrights.org/crashbarrier/index.html

I like this line" Indeed, posts supporting the guardrails have edges that act as razors when hit at speeds above 30 km/h. A motorcyclist falling off his bike in a bend will slide inexorably towards the side of the road, resulting in an impact on the barrier post. Biomechanical constraints acceptable by a human body are often exceeded. Limbs can be cut off; and victims might bleed to death."

https://www.fema.ridersrights.org/crashbarr...barrier2005.PDF

https://epubl.ltu.se/1402-1617/2005/233/LTU-EX-05233-SE.pdf

I have tried to find information/testing results on the injuries a rider would sustain if he was not on the bike, a slide or tumble, with no luck.

If, I am in a crash, let me hit nothing. If, am going to hit a barrier of some sort, I prefer the modified steel guard rail system or concrete.

John T.

 

[Old Michael]

They don't redirect 4-wheeed vehicles. They're designed to grab the front wheel and keep it steered into the wall, to keep it from going back across the road across traffic. If you actually got your front wheel into it, you'd probably go down away from the wall, and right into traffic.

Looking at it, that does make sense wfooshee. A sidewall would grab it and be pulled left.

And as noted by the other scientists here, there likely would be no good outcome for a bike that touches it anywhere.

I have been concerned about the wire barriers for some time. ......An example of a motorcyclist hitting a wire barrier...

...More to read:...

...If, I am in a crash, let me hit nothing. If, am going to hit a barrier of some sort, I prefer the modified steel guard rail system or concrete.

John T.

Interesting stuff John. Troubling,..........but interesting. Thank you.

And people who die on motorcycles DON'T go to hell. Different rules.

 

[SacramentoMike]

At least where you took that pic they prolly won't send you down a cliff and into a tree. mg2:

 

[Fastfar]

The barriers shown in OM's photo are on US 50 both east and west bound lanes in Sacramento east of the 99 merge. They are installing commuter lanes in both directions, so the wood section capping the concrete section is to keep out construction lights and add more height to separate the crews from traffic and vice-versa....it makes the #1 lane a little less attractive in those areas fer sure...be nice when it's done though B)

 

[johnny80s]

I was riding by the barriers on the 15 in SoCal yesterday. I noticed that yes almost my entire body was above the barrier. It is a scary thought that someone should hit one of those on a bike.

 

[BwanaDik]

In WA we too have the have these horrid cable dividers on I-5. I see 2 options go over into the other lanes or go under it and really get some serious injuries.

From the looks of THIS article it looks like we'll be seeing more and more cable barriers installed in the future. The ones pictured are the type I've seen installed in Oregon and Washington.

I didn't realize that these were designed for crashing into. They were just installed on the I-45 corridor, most of the way from Huntsville to Corsicana. They look really flimsey. I thought they were to prevent the typical-for-Texas turn anywhere you want median crossing exercise. Thanks for the info.