AASHTO Journal, 11 September 2015
The Federal Highway Administration and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials released findings from a special joint task force studying roadside guardrail crash data. As a result, said FHWA Administrator Greg Nadeau, “we must fully implement the next generation criteria as part of our roadside safety efforts.”
The FHWA/AASHTO task force said real-world crash data they evaluated “suggest that extruding w-beam guardrail end terminals made by several different manufacturers experienced performance limitations in certain impact and installation scenarios. These limitations have led the task force to make several recommendations, including implementation of next generation of guardrail terminal crash test criteria for new installations.”
The FHWA, representatives from state departments of transportation and three independent experts participated in the task force efforts. The group reviewed information from crashes that involved a range of terminals from multiple manufacturers.
Nadeau said this was “the most thorough evaluation ever conducted of this particular roadside safety hardware.”
AASHTO Executive Director Bud Wright said: “Task force members have identified a number of factors that contribute to the overall performance of roadside devices in real-world situations. AASHTO and its members will consider how to move forward based on the recommendations which include additional in-service evaluations of roadside devices, an expansion of the documentation of crashes and fully implementing the roadside safety guidelines identified in the AASHTO Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware. These are key steps in the on-going process of developing the next generation of roadside hardware.”
Here is the full press release explaining the findings.