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They are putting up stupid steel rope type barriers on the highway...

rudeguy

rudeguy

Lifer
This folks, is how your hard earned money is being spent. That's right...everyone who pays taxes helped pay for these bad boys. Michigan is broke but thanks to the stimulus, the government made my whole ride into work a construction zone so they could put these stupid things up.

Everything I have read about them says they do more harm than good. If a car hit them, the car is pretty much done for. They are putting these up on the major highways (196 and 96). Now in the winter, Michigan roads get slippery. Sometimes people go in the ditch. Now that we have these things in place, we will no longer have cars in the ditch. They will be either on the side of the road, making it so the plows can't plow. Or even better will be when cars bounce of them and take out some innocent other car.

Video for reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGZeQ8Q8uWE
(awesome soundtrack provided by yours truly. Sorry about the wind noise. I was doing 75 when I took the video)
 
I feel asleep at the wheel a few years back, woke up on an empty highway(my side at least) after tapping the right hand guardrail. That wakes you up real fast. I'm still made at myself that I wasn't able to recover perfectly, but instead swerved too hard left and ended up on the steel ropes in the median, they peeled back the front fender on my Pontiac Vibe but I got control and drove off the highway. Stopped under an underpass and called for a ride, officer showed up and took an accident report.

So happy to have survived.
 
highland145 said:
In place here for several years. Thought they were supposed to keep cars out of oncoming traffic. We don't get the winters like you, thankfully.

Dang $65K per mile?!?
http://www.kcci.com/r/24653836/detail.html

Edit:Brent Walker with the DOH said about the cable barriers. Cable barriers aren't a sure thing, but Walker says they do work 85 to 90 percent of the time.
http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/104240954.html
Click to expand...

nice.

$65k per mile and I think they are doing 36 miles of it??

The good news is that they are taking a very long time to do it. Looks like almost a week per mile.
 
Those things are really dangerous... Motorcyclists call them cheese slicers.. A guy near me was literally chopped in half..


From what I understand they're banned in the EU due to safety issues, and we use them here because they're cheap and easy to install.
 
SpatiallyAware said:
Those things are really dangerous... Motorcyclists call them cheese slicers.. A guy near me was literally chopped in half..


From what I understand they're banned in the EU due to safety issues, and we use them here because they're cheap and easy to install.
Click to expand...

my point is that not only are they not needed here, they will make things way worse.

But we had to spend the money on something I guess....
 
We used to have many crossover deaths a year on a particular highway. Since they installed these there haven't been any. I think they're a great idea and should be on all highways.
 
I would rather have a car hit the cables and be done for than it cross the median and have me be done for.
 
Ramma2 said:
I would rather have a car hit the cables and be done for than it cross the median and have me be done for.
Click to expand...

they don't cross the median!

In the winter the snow stops you after a few feet.

No one goes off the road except in the winter. Maybe one person in the past 15 years if that???
 
rudeguy said:
they don't cross the median!

In the winter the snow stops you after a few feet.

No one goes off the road except in the winter. Maybe one person in the past 15 years if that???
Click to expand...

I don't buy that. Most highway fatalities are from crossovers. I'm positive every single state has already had many per state this year if not dozens each.
 
rudeguy said:
my point is that not only are they not needed here, they will make things way worse.

But we had to spend the money on something I guess....
Click to expand...
Yeah. I've had a huge pit in front of my office for the last 6 months. A $3M+ project to reduce the cities water run off that's causing erosion in a protected woodland.
 
spidey07 said:
I don't buy that. Most highway fatalities are from crossovers. I'm positive every single state has already had many per state this year if not dozens each.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying the whole state. I'm saying that the part of the highway they are putting them on doesn't have that problem. We do have a problem with bad roads in the winter. Cars slide off the road all the time in the winter. Now that we have these lovely things, the cars will be in the way of the plows and other cars.

How is that a great idea?
 
rudeguy said:
I'm not saying the whole state. I'm saying that the part of the highway they are putting them on doesn't have that problem. We do have a problem with bad roads in the winter. Cars slide off the road all the time in the winter. Now that we have these lovely things, the cars will be in the way of the plows and other cars.

How is that a great idea?
Click to expand...

Ok I see what you're saying now. Where I do my daily commute, the median is pretty small, 8-10 feet, with only a 2-3 foot ditch and cars do cross it both in winter and summer.

On the flip side near my parents house there are huge medians, 30-40 feet wide with a substantial ditch, and they put the barriers up there as well. Probably not as helpful in situations like those.
 
I work for MDOT, so I have some input on these new guardrails.
highland145 said:
Dang $65K per mile?!?
http://www.kcci.com/r/24653836/detail.html
Click to expand...

$65k/mile is chump change. Cable guard rails is about the cheapest safety measure you can use next to rumble strips. Anything and everything that has to do with roads, whether its safety or actually building them costs hundreds of millions of dollars.

rudeguy said:
they don't cross the median!

In the winter the snow stops you after a few feet.

No one goes off the road except in the winter. Maybe one person in the past 15 years if that???
Click to expand...

This is a misconception, I used to think this as well and its not true. Cars cross the median and is one of the most common causes of highway fatality.

The problem is that adding in the cables fixes the fatalities, but creates a new problem, more vehicle damage.

I think the best solution is to put the cable rails in the center of the median and not to the very edge close to the highway. That way cars can slide off and not hit the rails.
 
see it's not the same for every place. In your area it's not a good thing, in others it is. Seems like the big grass ditch has a lot of leeway some roads are not like that. But it's money give to the city that they HAVE to spend or they don't get any more.

It's stupid but it's how government works. Here they are repaving perfect roads, not a single thing wrong with it. Our money, well spent. My teacher friends tell me they are given x money and though they don't need to buy anything they have to use it that year and can't save/roll it over. If they don't spend it, it's deemed they don't need that money and next year they don't get as much.
 
SpatiallyAware said:
Those things are really dangerous... Motorcyclists call them cheese slicers.. A guy near me was literally chopped in half..


From what I understand they're banned in the EU due to safety issues, and we use them here because they're cheap and easy to install.
Click to expand...

If that guy was going fast enough when he hit them to get chopped in half, then he was going more than fast enough to make into oncoming traffic and kill himself and maybe some other people too. Sounds like they did their job.
 
MrX8503 said:
I work for MDOT, so I have some input on these new guardrails.
Click to expand...
Oh good, I need to vent.

I hope you had nothing to do with the Telegraph project, because that is the worst planned construction project I have ever seen. akjdhfnmajhfkjlahdfjkd. Thank god I don't have to go back over there any time in the near future.
 
Last edited:
SpatiallyAware said:
Those things are really dangerous... Motorcyclists call them cheese slicers.. A guy near me was literally chopped in half..


From what I understand they're banned in the EU due to safety issues, and we use them here because they're cheap and easy to install.
Click to expand...

Yep, they made them out of old Ginsu knives, so they'll slice the cars into 1' thick slices when they slide off the roads in Michigan. 😵
 
marvdmartian said:
Yep, they made them out of old Ginsu knives, so they'll slice the cars into 1' thick slices when they slide off the roads in Michigan. 😵
Click to expand...

don't give me any ideas...I'm already on the verge of PIT'ing at least 3 cars a day. If I knew they would be filleted when they hit the barrier....It would be on.
 
spidey07 said:
We used to have many crossover deaths a year on a particular highway. Since they installed these there haven't been any. I think they're a great idea and should be on all highways.
Click to expand...

Agreed. We have them on many highways in BC where I live, and I think they're a great idea.
 
OCGuy said:
What kind of backwards place do you live in if there are no concrete barriers between freeways??
Click to expand...

Michigan

We have cement barriers where there is oncoming traffic. Our medians do a fine job...especially when they are packed with snow or bogged down with mud. I'd say you might be able to drive across one maybe 4 months out of the year if you tried.
 
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