Interactions Between Safety Barriers & Cars

Safety barriers are found commonly on the highways. They include plastic barriers meant for temporary blocking, concrete barriers for permanent end points and even water-filled barriers to help stop a car without doing major damage to the vehicle. Cars interact with safety barriers in a number of ways, and, to create better safety features, research on these interactions is ongoing.

Crashes

• One of the obvious interactions between cars and safety barriers is a crash. Cars may crash into barriers for a variety of reasons and, depending on the barrier, a variety of different results can ensue. For instance, crashing into a concrete barrier is likely to result in damage to both the barrier and the car into which it crashed. If the car crashes into a water-filled barrier, it will likely break the plastic and the vehicle will incur some damage, though not as much as it would if it struck the concrete barrier. Water barriers will also not likely stop a car immediately, and it will possibly go through several of them depending on the speed.

Testing

• Cars can also interact with safety barriers during safety testing. To make sure that a certain model is up to safety standards, car companies will put test dummies inside the car, strap them in and then launch the vehicle at a safety barrier. When the car strikes the barrier, the damage that is done to the car and to the dummies can be identified and used for research. Engineering staff can evaluate whether the safety features functioned properly.

Directions

• A noninteraction between a car and a safety barrier occurs when the barrier is meant to direct traffic in a certain way by cutting off other possibilities. For instance, a line of sawhorses with reflective tape and flashing lights could be used to direct traffic to go in certain directions. These barriers are not employed to stop a car going 60 miles an hour; rather, the barrier is in place to warn drivers that they aren't supposed to drive in the identified direction.