[MR] median barriers nearly complete

[blackbow at carolina.rr.com]

Shame they didn't finish the work a few years earlier.

Regards,

Jonathan Blackbow


[From the Charlotte Observer]
New median guardrails saving lives
Dramatic decrease in head-on crash fatalities
DIANNE WHITACRE
Staff Writer

Median barriers that stop out-of-control cars from crashing
into oncoming traffic have saved about 70 lives on N.C.
freeways since 1998, state officials say.

South Carolina also has experienced a significant drop in
these fatal crashes since installing the barriers.

The work to install cable, metal or concrete barriers on
North Carolina's most dangerous freeways is about 75
percent complete. The remaining 270 miles will be in place
by spring 2004, said traffic safety engineer Kevin Lacy
with the state Department of Transportation.

That includes 8.5 miles of barrier going in this spring on
Interstate 485, from Independence Boulevard in Charlotte to
N.C. 218 and from N.C. 49 to south of Interstate 85.

The decline in North Carolina cross-median freeway deaths
has been dramatic. In 1990, 47 people died. In 2001, that
dropped to 11.

South Carolina had about 40 fatal crashes from 1999 to
2000, but only two since the state began installing median
cables in late 2000.

Cross-median collisions are three times more severe than
other highway crashes because of their high speeds and head-
on nature, said N.C. DOT Secretary Lyndo Tippett. North
Carolina installs barriers when the freeway median is 70
feet or less, South Carolina chose medians of 60 feet or
less. Drivers can almost always stop their vehicle in a
wider median, engineers say.

The three-piece cable barriers are very effective, Lacy
says, because they're made to stretch and absorb impact.
Concrete walls or steel guardrails are used when the median
is too narrow or steep for cables.

Mike Bullington saw how effective the cables can be. He was
driving I-85 in Salisbury a few years ago when he saw an
out-of-control car heading into the grass median. "He ran
into that cable and his car pulled the cable over 11 feet,"
Bullington said. "The driver was just standing there,
scratching his head, wondering what happened. He wasn't
hurt at all."

Bullington supervises a crew that had installed that very
cable just days before.

In March, South Carolina will install the last few miles of
its 310-mile project to put barriers on most medians on I-
85, I-26, I-77, I-385 and I-526.

S.C. repair crews have found 1,781 collisions with the
median barriers in the last two years.

"We can't say how many lives were saved, but I can't help
but think a majority of those cars would have gone across
into the oncoming traffic," Jenkins said.

North Carolina started its median-barrier program in 1998,
South Carolina in 2000.

Both states began installing the barriers after horrific
head-on crashes.

Six died in 1997 in three head-on crashes across I-85's
narrow median in Rowan County.

In July 2000, eight people died -- six of them from an
Asheville family -- when a tractor-trailer crossed an I-26
median north of Columbia.

A few days later, two women died in another crash.

Although cable barriers don't look as sturdy as guardrails
or concrete, engineers say they're an excellent choice.

"They all perform well," Lacy said. "We like to use the
softest cushion we can provide. Cables absorb the energy of
the crash, and it won't rebound you into the travel lanes."

The three strands of steel cable are anchored by blocks of
concrete buried in the median. Strong springs allow the
cables to stretch several feet.

Vehicles occasionally vault over the three barriers or slip
under cable.

But the cables have stopped tractor-trailers.

"They aren't designed to hold back a semi, but we find they
hold up pretty well," Lacy said.


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