Arrest the driver or put him to bed? Neither. Arrester beds.

I was reading the other day the news from Greece and was sad to learn about a multi-vehicle crash in one of Greece’s major highways, that resulted in 4 people losing their life and more than 30 injured. The crash involved a heavy vehicle that crashed into a line of cars temporarily stopped at road works, resulting in a huge pileup. According to one of the eye witnesses the heavy vehicle, a prime mover – semi trailer combination, crashed at the vehicles at full speed and “was throwing the cars up in the air, like paper napkins”.

Egnatia odos one of the most modern motorways in Greece, and part of the Trans-European Networks, has a relatively good safety record, especially compared to the rest of the Greek motorway and highway system that is quite notorious for the level of fatalities. The driver, a Romanian national, driving a truck registered in Romania that transited through Greece, claimed that the truck’s braking systems failed and was driving without any breaks for more than 20 kms.

Just  a few days later, another similar type of crash, involving this time a truck and dog trailer combination occurred on one of Athens’s motorways. Again in a similar situation, the truck crashed into a number of cars ahead of it, ending up on top of the median concrete barrier. The driver claimed that the truck’s brakes failed and he drove on the median on purpose, so as to avoid crashing directly on the cars.

The investigations on both accidents will finally reveal the cause of the crash. Usually in most cases like these, more than one factor contributes to the unfortunate events. Road works traffic management, vehicle maintenance and compliance enforcement, use of seat-belts and availability of passive road safety features in cars are among the parameters that are examined. 

Driver fatigue is one of the factors that have a direct link to crashes especially with heavy vehicles where drivers are behind the wheel usually for more than 12 hours per day. There are a lot of ways to understand when you are experiencing driver's fatigue and a few ways to deal with it effectively, with the best being to pull over and go to bed.

The reported heavy vehicle brake failures though, made me think of a simple road safety installation that is quite common in Australia but not in Greece: Arrester beds or runaway truck ramps as they are else known. Described by Austroads as a containment facility, it is a road safety treatment designed  for cases of brake failure. They are long trenches filled with gravel designed to stop runaway trucks by drag and fiction. Emergency stopping beds, as they are also known in Queensland, they are usually located prior to or at the start of the tight turns with small radius like the one bellow.

Arrester bed, Cunningham Highway, QLD

Arrester beds are used on downhill road sections so it's not certain that they would be suitable for either of the crashes in Greece. They do have though, a proven record of effectiveness and should be examined in all roads that carry big volumes of heavy vehicle traffic.Maybe future research can indicate whether temporary arrester beds can be used in road works situations.  

Colorado, USA, Source: LetUbeU

Texting while driving. OMG not LOL!

While I was driving to get to a site inspection today I stopped at a  intersection with traffic lights. When I turned my head to my right, I noticed that all three vehicle drivers waiting at the lights at the lane next to me where texting. Heads down looking at their mobile phone which they were all holding with both their hands were clearly typing SMS text messages or using any other keyboard related application. Especially with the new smart phones there is a big number of very popular mobile phone applications like email, internet browsers, facebook, twitter, etch that you can use. 

http://wordproverb.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/texting-while-driving.html

I was puzzled at first that all three drivers were doing the same thing. I thought that it was a rare coincidence and it had to do with the traffic lights. Stopping on a red light may make people thing that they have the time to send a quick message or check if that email they have been waiting has come through. But then when the signals turned to green at least two of them that I managed to follow as we were driving parallel at the same direction kept the mobile phone on their hand and were driving with the other. One of them kept typing and occasionally looking at his phone. 

http://www.intomobile.com/2010/07/02/michigan-bans-texting-while-driving/

This is outrageous. People buy smart phones but they are not so smart themselves. Texting while driving is not only illegal in Queensland (300$ fine and 3 demerit points) and whole of Australia but is also considered more dangerous than drunk driving. Driver distraction and inattention have a detrimental impact on road safety.

http://www.themotorreport.com.au/38509/texting-while-driving-increases-crash-risk-by-23-times-study

And while numerous road safety campaigns focus on this issue, the numbers of drivers texting while driving increase. Even though that last year stories of drivers’crashing while texting messages like "I need to quit texting, because I could die in a car accident" made the news. Different solutions with the help of technology were proposed, such as mobile phone deactivation or voice control texting. 

But the question still remains: Do we need someone else to take care of us? Why can't we just do the right thing and don’t use the mobile phone while we are driving?  Why do we prefer OMG rather than LOL?

Bruce highway road trip

 A few days ago we made our first Australian road trip. From Brisbane to Airlie Beach on a total distance of more than 1200 kilometres if you include the deviations to other beach side locations like Hervey Bay or Emu Park. And that’s just the one direction total distance. The trip was very interesting through the most beautiful landscape of central Queensland. 

The basic route from Brisbane up north is through the (in)famous Bruce highway. When I first heard of Bruce highway I though of Bruce Almighty and in certain parts of the trip I wished that I had Bruce Nolan’s abilities to transform things around me.

The thing I wanted to transform the most was the road itself. Bruce highway, named after the former Queensland and federal politician Henry Adam Bruce who was the state Minister for Works when the highway was named after him, in the mid 1930s. And in some parts Bruce highway seems to have remained in 1930’s.

The first part of Bruce highway, from Brisbane to Noosa Heads is a dual carriageway and at that point is that the good news for motorists ends. That is the same point that the good news for Queensland wildlife ends as well. I haven’t seen so many dead animals, mainly kangaroos in the side of the road, ever before. It seems that the “respect for our wildlife” signs don’t do much help here. The highway is a regular deathtrap for so many wildlife animals and it is very strange that it lucks protective fencing especially at some parts that passes through the forest.

Unfortunately Bruce highway raises serious safety issues to drivers and the innovative fatigue – trivia signs don’t seem to help so much. They are really interesting and they provide some trivia knowledge about Queensland but they can’t be considered a safety measure.

 

On the contrary safety measure can be considered the median treatment on some parts of the highway on the road from Curra to Cooroy. 

 

Safety measures are also the overtaking lanes. Especially these were a lot of help when I had a B-double truck tailgating me at a speed of more than 100 km/h. 

 

The Bruce highway is used by up to 170,000 vehicles a day. While it is just 32% of the total length of Queensland highways it is accounting for the 51% of casualty crashes during 2003-2007 and 59% of deaths. These statistics are only second worst to the Pacific Highway that links Brisbane with Gold Cost. 

Queensland Government is working with Australian Government to upgrade Bruce Highway. Together they have developed Bruce Highway Upgrade Strategy, which identifies priority investments for the Bruce Highway. Over the next 20 years Bruce Highway will see 340 kilometres of highway duplication, bridge replacements, intersection upgrades and other safety improvements. 

I am afraid that in a state that railroad is not much developed, these upgrades are not enough and the level of service that Bruce highway provides will keep undermining growth in Queensland and will keep putting people and animals in great danger.