The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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August 12, 2008

Oklahoma: Statistics show barriers save lives

The Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY — For Phil Tomlinson, secretary of transportation, the value of cable barriers became clear when a car spun out of control in the opposite lane in front of him on a busy stretch of highway.

The car struck the cable barrier, avoiding a likely head-on crash, straightened out and came to a stop.

Two women got out of the car, surveyed the damage and drove away, apparently without significant injury.

“It was just amazing to watch it happen,” Tomlinson said Tuesday after a meeting of the Oklahoma Transportation Commission. “It caught them like a spider web catches prey.”

The accident occurred three weeks ago on Interstate 40, about five miles east of Oklahoma.

It prompted Tomlinson to telephone Gary Ridley, director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation, who was attending a meeting of highway executives in Oregon.

“He said, ‘Ridley, your cable barriers work,’” the ODOT director said.

Tomlinson recalled a sadder story a dozen years ago when his son was involved in a crossover accident on Interstate 35 in Texas, where there were no barriers. Steven Tomlinson escaped serious injury, but his best friend, a passenger, was killed.

Statistics disclosed at the commission meeting told a story of many lives saved by cable barriers since Oklahoma became the first state to install them in 2001.

In the first six months of the 2008, there have been six fatal crossover crashes, but none in areas where cable barriers were constructed, often along dangerous, narrow medians.

In the last four years, fatalities caused by vehicles crossing the median averaged 34 over 12 months, 18 over the first half of the year, according to John Fuller, ODOT chief engineer.

Cable barriers were widely used in Europe for before becoming popular in the U.S. this decade.

They are much cheaper to erect than concrete median barriers, allowing states to cover more miles of highway for the same cost.

“Cable barriers can and have provided lifesaving protection and peace of mind to motorists across Oklahoma,” Ridley said.

They were first introduced on the Lake Hefner Parkway in Oklahoma City in 2001. Since that time, the parkway’s cable barrier has been rammed more than 500 times, with one fatality occurring, compared to six in the three years before installation.

The cable barrier program was expanded after the Legislature provided new funding in 2005. Now 230 miles of cable have been installed or are under construction across the state in locations with a history of crossover accidents. Contracts have been let for 41 more miles of cable.

Ridley praised Faria Emamian, project manager, for his fast work to erect the cable system.

“He has definitely saved some lives,” Ridley said.

The cost of the 271 miles of cable is estimated at $38 million, a fraction of what it would cost to erect concrete barriers.

On average, cable barriers cost about 10 percent of what concrete structures cost, although they are not suitable for all median designs.

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