AASHTO Journal, 18 December 2015
The Virginia Department of Transportation announced that it will “aggressively move” to implement a newer set of testing critera when replacing guardrails across the state.
“Safety is VDOT’s number one priority,” said VDOT Commissioner Charles Kilpatrick. “We’re taking action to reduce the severity of crashes and save lives. VDOT has taken a hard look at the facts and is delivering a plan of action based purely on safety for all motorists.”
The agency’s new action plan, and its move to replace hardware with equipment that meets standards recently developed for the Manual for Assessing Safety Hardware of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, follows VDOTs own review of the ET-Plus guardrail end terminals made by Trinity Industries.
VDOT Chief Engineer Garrett Moore said the department “will use a risk-based replacement plan for guardrail terminals. The agency is implementing updated standards for guardrails and terminals installed on new construction projects.”
Under this plan, VDOT will continue to replace damaged ET-Plus units with agency-approved products.
By next fall, VDOT said, it will also begin replacing existing end terminals on roads where crashes could be more severe, such as high speed roadways, with end terminals that meet the updated crash-testing standards.
And it will use the updated standards when installing new guardrails and terminals on construction projects. VDOT noted that those standards will raise the height of guardrails from 27.75 inches to 31 inches to meet the needs of newer vehicles.