Auto Action article on Sandown Safety

[PVDA]

Tomorrow (Thursday) night an item on the ABC program Catalyst will talk about injuries in road crashes caused by a bad chose of barriers.

May have no info valid to this debate but the promo certainly made for interesting viewing.

[Dirk]

Did anyone see the program PVDA mentioned, if so what was outcome of their discussions?

[spook]

I watched it with great interest, and it did reinforce the current trend to incorporate more wire rope barriers on roads, and less concrete barriers.

The focus of the story was dealing with injuries sustained for impact angles over 35 degrees with a roadside barrier. You cannot transfer these situations directly to a racetrack installation for a number of reasons that I have already covered in earlier posts.

We need to remember that the primary reason for the first line of protection at a racetrack, is as the first line of defence for trackside marshalls and spectators from an errant racecar. It should secondly be of a design and layout to minimise injury to the driver. The CAMS safety guide for racetracks considers impact angles greater than 35 degrees should be avoided at all times by appropriate design and layout.

The tests were carried out by Monash University.

[Dirk]

Imagine the down time in a V8 Superca meeting if there were the ropes. It would take longer to fix that than guard rail! The good old trusty concrete wall never needs fixing in between races.

[spook]

Exactly my point. While wire rope and to some extent guardrail is better for the occupants of the vehicle, the downtime for repairs is difficult to manage in a raceway situation. In wire rope installations, only the posts are actually damaged, and these are socketed in the ground, so repairs are relatively quick compared to guardrail. But it still takes time. The rope is not "stretched" in an impact, only the posts are damaged. I recall you can replace the posts at the rate of 4/minute, with a crew of two.

The other issue with flexible system like wire rope and guardrail is the area behind the barriers must be clear of any persons or fixed object to allow the barriers to deform. In other words, you should not have flag marshalls or bridge piers within 2-3metres behind a flexible barrier system.

The ideal racetrack would have a double barrier installation. The first barrier would be a flexible system for the benefit of the driver, and 2-3metres behind this would be a rigid barrier for flaggies to work behind. The area between the flexible and rigid barrier would be a no-go zone for flaggies. But the cost !!!!! (dollars and land area).

The importance of having the correct type and layout of barrier for each area of a racetrack is critical. No one system can be applied to every area.

[Matthew Ronke]

I remember seeing a documentary on the wire rope instillation. It has done wonders for the road toll in Sweden. However Australian Motorcyclists where asking the Question what would happen if a motorcyclist hit the wire rope instillation. The answer they where suggesting is that it would slice the rider in half.

[Kerri]

Not very amusing I know Matthew but it did put a smile on my face,it is a very obvious & excellent point.

[1200Datto27]

Or something like a low nose open wheeler going under the wire? Also, These wires act like saws, and could cut quite deeply into a (composite especially) car moving at great speed.

[Morris 1100]

There has been a death in Australia from a wire rope barrier cutting through the pillar of a car....

[Crash Test]

Hrmmm, but how fast was the car going? If it were doing 350km/h, I wouldn't like to go holding much hope for them, even if they hit armco, concrete, hay bales etc. You'd have to be sum up like incidents really.

Would there be any sort of use for things like the SAFER barriers in the states in some applications?

[Kerri]

Food for thought Crash. No pun intended.

[1200Datto27]

If I am thinking of the same crash, the impact speed was around 90kph, and was caused by the bonnet of the car going under the wire, lifting it up to the base of the windscreen.

[spook]

When I last did some in-depth research on WRSF (2-3 years ago), at that time it had been in use throughout the world for more than a decade. In that time there had been hundreds of impacts with Wire Rope Barriers by motorcyclists, and there had never been a fatality attributed to the barrier. In fact there was not even a fatal car accident recorded at that time attributed to the barrier. Sure there had been fatal accidents where car impacted the WRSF, but cause of death was later found to be heart failure or other trauma caused by a preceeding impact with something other than the WRSF.

I have seen the results of motorcyclists hitting both concrete and Steel Beam Guardrail, and neither were pretty. It is a falicy that the rope "will cut a rider in half". I recall a expert in human anatomy saying that you would have to be doing over 400km/h to cut a person in half with a 20mm wire rope.

The supporting posts for the WRSF are aluminium, much softer than the hot rolled steel posts and rails forming guardrail or concrete barriers. No physical barrier apart from "Airfence" is ideal for motorcyclists.

Perhaps at our ideal circuit we would have Airfence against the WRSF and then Concrete barrier 2-3m behind this and the spectators 3m behind the concrete.

Morris 1100, I would be keen to find out more details on the fatal accident involving WRSF, can you please provide more information to complete my research.

[RaceTime]

I know what the theorists say, but I have to be honest and say my thoughts on WRSF is it appears to be a more dangerous style of barrier than armco style fencing.

Reason I say this - if a car jits a concrete barrier or armco barrier - on a highway at least - they are going to slide along the barrier (this is, of course, assuming a regulation speed accident ie 100 or 100 km/h at time of accident). The car is most likely to hit the barrier at a shallow angle and continue along the barrier.

In the case of WRSF barrier - everytime I se it I start thinking of the difference hitting it, in the same manner as described above, will entail. For starters a vehicle will NOT slide along it - it will hit one of the posts which, whether it be deformable or not, is going to staryt tearing into the car which concrete and armco won't do.

Personally I am concerned by the thought of hitting those wire ropes - IMHO if I were to hit one I believe I am going to have less chance of coming out of an accident in one piece than if I hit say concrete or armco.

[mixxer]

As part time bike rider I think WRSF barrier's are the work of the devil.............................. but then again I think speed limits are also part of his handiwork

Spook, A question
if a drunk rider was speeding and was involved in a TC with a car, then impacted the WRSF and as a result of his injurys was DOA would the fatality be recorded on records that your refering to or would it just be down to the speeding/drinking and not show up ?

[1200Datto27]

Heres a question for you with regards to WRSF. a Formula style car loses it, and the nose of the car goes through the barrier (remember, designed to stop road vehicles), what is the next thing that the wire wiil contact at speed? the drivers head and neck area, and I believe that the driver will come off second best in that case. I hate to think about what could happen with a superkart.

[1200Datto27]

Oh, and I do not want to be the marshall who has to clean it up.

[RaceTime]

Sounds like the accident we had on the GP Rally last year at Sale Airport - BMW ran out of brakes at the end of the Sale Airport flying 1/8th mile - he ran off the runway, up a slight embankment and THROUGH a barbed wire fence - still have photos of the scratches as the barbed wire sraped over the roof. Hate to think what the outcome would have been if this had been a clubman style car!

[1200Datto27]

Having seen a friend go through a barbed wire fence on a horse that had been spooked by a roo, and having to put the horse down after that due to the injuries sustained, I can imagine what would happen.

[spook]

I am not advocating the use of WRSF in it's current design form for racetracks. I am simply trying to point out the relative benefits of each type of barrier. Someone, at some time in the future will come up with a system using wire rope that can be used on a racetrack - it will happen.

In actual fact RaceTime, if you go to the Brifen web site, you will see lots of photos of some amazing real world impacts with WRSF and the vehicles are relatively undamaged. You see the wire rope deflects according to the angle and mass of the vehicle, absorbing energy. Guardrail does deflect, but only with greater damage to the vehicle.

WRSF would not be a suitable application at the end of SALE airport runway - a gravel trap would have helped there. Just remember that we are talking impact angles of less than 35 degrees - that's the guide that CAMS uses for racetracks. Angles with barriers greater than 35 degrees must be preceeded by gravel traps to reduce impact speeds. Can you imagine the BMW if there had been guardrail or SSCB (Single Slope Concrete Barrier) at the end of the airport runway.

BTW RaceTime, was there any explanation as to why the BMW brakes failed or why the driver could not switch off. It went a long long long way from the speed trap.

And to your question mixxer, I do not have any knowledge of a nationwide crash database that identifies different barrier types in accidents. Unfortunately, the only information freely available outside of Government Departments is from the manufacturers of the systems, and they could always be accused of a biased view.

In the USA, they have a very good deformable crash system that is used on Superspeedways suitable for Formula Cars, designed in Australia too.

[mixxer]

Thanks spook thats what I thought, cheers

[Dirk]

And where would the marshalls stand? I am apprehensive to stand behind the guard rail because of its nature to flex and move what about these rope barriers, from what I have seen of them they move a hell of a lot. Also just think of the marshalls and spectators with the flying debris....

[spook]

Well Dirk, I'm glad you realise that Guardrail will move, that just might save your life one day.

Marshalls must always (in my personal opinion) stand behind a rigid barrier (concrete), but there should be a flexible/deformable structure or gravel trap in front of the rigid barrier to prevent injuries to drivers where the likely impact angle is greater than 35 degrees.

There is less debris created from an impact with WRSF than a similar impact with guardrail, simply because the area of contact is less. Less contact, less debris. But I take your point and personally believe that all marshall posts at all circuits should have some form of debris fencing for protection - not just street circuits.