Highways

amenity · Highways

Did you know that the Highways Agency are now replacing all centre crash
barrier with concrete wall to save money on maintenance and repair. This
will be implemented on all roads that have an "average daily traffic flow"
of 25,000 vehicles or more (most motorways and busy trunk roads).

A little bird told me Cool

ivan burit

Ouch amenity.

From a one time naughty boy Banger racer, whose tracks used to have forgiving vertical ex railway line holding in place the circuler wire rope safety barrier 5 or 6 high, to now having steel reinforced solid concrete walls to retain wayward 1 ton motors, it now HURTS (so i`m told)
The thunderous crunch when a moveable object hits an unmoveable safety wall uctually shakes the ground you stand on......

What is it going to do to the passengers of accident projectile motor cars/vans, lorries.
I wont even think about motor cyclists.......

The present day system is / was used to stop wayward vehicles in a controlled manner, absorbing momentum as it did so....
The design brief was told to do this, along with the many prototypes along the way.

A small note though amenity, when doing road works, the constructors use solid wall systems to controll trafic flow in "tight" width lanes, at the central point of the road.
IF, they used solid wall systems, in theory, the road could be made wider right up to the very edge of the solid wall, creating extra width, and by pinching some of the nearside "breakdown" lane could produce 3 lanes from 2 lanes along the race track we know as the Alpha 12..........hmmm

amenity

At a recent test running a average car into an eight ton block of concrete at about 70mph the block moved 6inches.

Apparently when bodies are found in cars at the scene of an accident these days no longer are they spiked with steering columns, crushed by engine blocks, etc etc. They just look as though they have fallen asleep.

The G forces exerted during stopping from speed in such a short distance rip all the organs from their correct place in the body, hence "asleep".

ivan burit

Your comments about being asleep were demonstrated on a Top Gear programme featuring a very well known "clever" small 2 door car.
The car survived the concrete block crash, but the "smart" dummies inside would have suffered terribly.....

Its a funny old world, but way back in the late `60s and very early `70s VOLVO cars were lambasted for there big bumpers, then energy absorbing bumpers along with steering colums that fell apart in frontal impact....(a pain in the butt for banger racing though..lol)

With better design, cars then evolved into energy absorbing boxes..
example...
the Mk 3 cortina had the ability to take a hard front end crunch in racing, its steering colum had a collapsable componant.
the Mk 4 cortina had a less strong chassis although almost identicle to look at.
the Mk 5 cortina had so many "energy absorbing" holes designed into its still identicle looking chassis sections, it was fast becoming a soggy pudding of a banger racer.
then came the Mk 1 sierra.
it had so many built in holes around the front of the car, plus the then huge plastic bumpers the took some of the impacts being foam filled, and mainly just clipped into place on the sides, but just 2 small bolts at chassis fitting points.
the Mk 2 sierra was much the same.
the Mondeos have like most modern cars, huge plastic front and rear ends that fall away, even now fitted with air bags.
Getting back to Volvos (you either love `em, or hate `em) i have had a few from the `70s a few years ago, solid dependable cars/ estates with well advanced for their designed years, braking systems. the late `60s volvos had 3 foot breaking circuits, and 1 seperate hand break curcuit that was not part of the foot break curcuit....
more modern cars adopted the seperate hand break idea, but developed antilock breaking ideas, some now so advanced, the car sences a possable collision in advance and self applies the vehicles breaks.

Computers have overtaken modern day cars so much, some of the high tech-multi high speed imported Japeneese cars have not only traction control, but stability controll, and even high performance speed cornering control taken away from the driver, but only allows the wheel driven power to be given out to the 4 driving/steering wheels if it feels its "safe" to do so......

Sorry but i do go on......lol

amenity

I have often wondered probably along with almost everyone else who lives down this way why the A120, such a disliked road, doesn't have remedial works done on it to reduce accidents.

Well, now I have found out.

It's because it is, wait for it, one of the safer roads in Area 6.

It would be fascinating to know why it has fewer accidents on most counts than the rest of Area 6, could it be that the A120 is such a frightening road to drive along that we take less chances?

Great site, plenty of info and up to date.

http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/8047.aspx

ivan burit

Not sure if i should link this with highways, accidents, or road safety, but..

look at this link to some of China`s car manufacturers product being crash tested for passenger safety...............horrific......

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F06LjugtIUo&feature=related