Les Jones: Cabled Highway Barriers Saving Lives

July 23, 2006

News > Cabled Highway Barriers Saving Lives

A relatively low-cost safety device — steel cable strung in highway medians — is proving phenomenally effective at saving lives, perhaps more so than steel-beam or concrete barriers.
Steel-beam, concrete and cable barriers all cut down on accidents in which cars cross over into oncoming traffic. Cable, however, also cuts down on the number of rebound accidents, in which a vehicle hits a barrier and bounces back into traffic.

Seems like you'd be less likely to be injured on initial impact with the cable barrier than a concrete barrier, too. I don't recall seeing any of these in East Tennessee.

Posted by lesjones | TrackBack

Comments

These cables are strung along the median over much of I-26 in South Carolina. I thought they were too flimsy to do much good in stopping a speeding truck or car, but apparently I'm wrong.

Wouldn't be the first time.

Posted by: cutter at July 23, 2006

Yes, they have these all over in SC. In the last two years of long distance commuting I've seen probably a dozen cars that have fought the cables and lost. From what I've seen, the cars end up sitting on top of the cables. Sure looks like they get a whole lot less smack than they would with the little concrete walls, as you said, and the repair bills to the car are probably lower as well.

Another neat thing... they can have openings in them so that police and emergency vehicles can cross over without losing their effectiveness. You just have to overlap them in the direction of traffic. Just make the median strip look like so:

---: :------------------>

-----------------: :---->

Cars can drive back between the cable runs yet it will stop cars that run into it. Clever.

Posted by: GunGeek at July 24, 2006

they're on I-40 in West Tennesse. I've seen them in Memphis.

Posted by: Diamondback at July 25, 2006