Barrier to safety
Page 27
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your article on "safety" barriers (6-12 October) echoes my sentiments of the past 30 years. The first motorways had no such barriers and when they came in they had frequent gaps for emergency services: minor errors of judgement resulted in both the perpetrators and occupants of oncoming
vehicles being injured or worse, either by impact or being impaled at barrier terminations.
Driver behaviour is a factor in all "accidents" but even the safest road users deserve protection from miscreants. Successive governments have concentrated on easy targets such as seat belt wearing and drink/drive legislation (which also deprives many innocents of their freedom, a littlereported fact) but ignores the needs of those who take safety seriously.
A first priority of a civilised society is to protect the innocent. Your main photo shows an ideal location for speed-reducing gravel (or similar), an idea which the aircraft industry was exploring three decades ago. It is effective and probably cheaper than maintaining the existing scrub.
But there is another serious flaw concerning barriers, Modern roads must meet strict gradient limits—usually 6% —which in rolling countryside means cuttings and embankments. An edge barrier impact with even a modestly high vehicle will guarantee a rollover down the bank. In just the past year we have had numerous accidents notably the M2 coach crash (10 killed) and more recently a similar one on the M5 (one killed, 10 seriously injured) because of this feature.
How much longer are we to put up with such inadequacies which, like lost wheels, continue to claim innocent lives? Governments claim that road deaths and accidents are reducing. This is a lie which many people are too willing to accept. Anthony Phillips, Salisbury Wilts.
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