Ninety percent of all non-motorway accidents on the roadside in which only one vehicle is involved are fatal. The application of safety fences on non-motorways has different problems. The main problems are the danger of rebounding with a chance of head-on collisions, the loss of an unobstructed view and the loss of vision, and very often the lack of space. The main functional requirements for such barriers are that the height should be small, but must be sufficient to prevent the vehicles from rebounding or jumping over the barrier, that the collision with the barriers causes no dangerous injury and that other road users have no extra risk from such barriers. In this report a review is made of low types of concrete barrier up to 35 cm height. In the trial of these barriers to the requirements it is shown that no barrier satisfies all requirements. Experimental studies have shown that a recently developed low flexible barrier can be efficient in light collisions. Further research is still needed in particular for heavier collision conditions.
Samenvatting