Government reports suggests ideas to make HGV’s safer

A new government report has shown that changes to the central reservation on motorways can make the roads safer from cross over incidents involving HGVs. According to the report, the barriers in place are responsible for incidents, and they could be avoided if the barriers were replaced with concrete ones. The Transport Research Laboratory discovered that fatalities can be reduced by implementing a very high containment safety fence or barrier

The report looked at 39 incidents that involved HGV’s in the UK and found that the barriers on the central reservation were responsible in nine of them. They concluded that if the barrier had been replaced with a concrete one, the accident would have been avoided altogether.

These incidents are rare in the UK, as an average of 56 incidents per year have occurred between 1985 and 1998. Lorries breaking through the central reservation were only involved in 120 accidents, out of 166,070 road casualties in that period, making the involvement of lorries in the casualties very rare.

The Highways Agency is however looking at the findings of the report and is considering taking action to make the roads safer:

‘What we are saying is the steel barriers are still up to standard but we will replace them eventually. We couldn’t replace them along the whole length of the network it would be too costly. The installation of concrete barriers in the central reservation reduces significantly the likelihood of crossover incidents, is essentially maintenance-free, and is unlikely to require repairs after vehicle impact. Therefore the accident risk to road users and road workers on our busy motorways is reduced.’

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