Irish riders win on wire rope barriers

[ruSTynutz]

Irish riders win on wire rope barriers

While wire rope barriers continue to be rolled out in Australia despite growing anger from riders, Irish authorities have admitted they are potentially dangerous to riders.

UK riders rights The Motorcycle Action Group held a meeting earlier this month with the Northern Ireland Department for Infrastructure who accepted that wire rope crash barriers were effective for larger vehicles, but posed a hazard to motorcyclists’ safety.

This follows a recent Victorian Auditor General’s report that slammed claims about the safety and cost effectiveness of wire rope barriers.

The auditor’s report found there was no evidence to support the claimed safety benefits for motorcyclists and scooter riders.
It also found Victoria’s WRB rollout was almost $100m over budget, over time and under-maintained.

Irish win
MAG Northern Ireland rep Martyn Boyd says there is “much work still to be done, but this is a good step forward”.

Click link to continue reading: https://motorbikewriter.com/irish-riders-win-on-wire-rope-barriers/

[Biggles]

They don't even seem to be effective in preventing cars from crossing the right or left edge of the road- I've seen plenty of them mown down for quite a distance.  It can't always be heavy vehicles doing it.  Armco is much more effective, except for all the ones ploughed into from the end.  There's no stopping some people's determination to leave the road.

[ruSTynutz]

In my opinion their effectiveness has perhaps lessoned also due to the popularity of SUV's.
When wire rope barriers first came on the scene most cars on the road were "normal" cars, but now we're seeing the opposite, more and more SUV's so I'm wondering whether these "higher" vehicles are actually more inclined to ride up over the barriers instead of getting properly restrained by the cables...

In regards to Armco, Vicroads have been filling the gap below the Armco rails with flat metal panels to make them a bit safer for motorcyclists but I've recently noticed that that has now changed and they have just been using a short flat panel at the start of the Armco and then using a "ribbed" panel for the rest of it....not ideal I'd imagine as a ribbed panel would surely injure a motorcyclist to a greater extent than a flat panel...