Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2007 > June > 26 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USCable barriers on I-85 could reduce deaths
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thomas Edward Brown died in a crash near the Hamilton Mill exit on I-85 recently.
In May, recently installed cable barriers in the median of I-85 stopped four cross-over crashes in Franklin and Hart counties.
Three of the collisions occurred during heavy rain on May 5; the fourth crash happened the next day.
Not one of the vehicles crossed over the median.
Not one went into the interstate in the other direction, into traffic.
The cable barriers may not stop all cross-over crashes, notably if a car is airborne, said Teri N. Pope, spokeswoman for the Georgia Department of Transportation northeast district that includes Gwinnett.
But they definitely help.
Just last Wednesday, Thomas Edward Brown, 17, of Hoschton was killed near the Hamilton Mill exit on I-85.
According to police, his 1999 Dodge Dakota was traveling southbound when it left the road, crossed an unprotected, grassy median, and collided with a northbound tractor-trailer truck.
He’d been en route to the Lawrenceville Methodist Campground to take part in a community service project in which teens repair homes for the needy. He died at the scene.
Authorities don’t know what caused Brown to leave his side of the road. Drugs and alcohol don’t appear to be factors. The investigation continues.
After I wrote about Brown, Laura Dillon of Dacula, a concerned reader, sent me an e-mail with a link to a year-old USA Today article: “Lives saved as highways get cable.”
“If the AJC could run with this and help make our roads safer, it would be invaluable,” she wrote.
Well, the DOT is already making the investment.
In January, the agency began installing cable barriers along a stretch of I-85 that runs from the southern Franklin County line to the South Carolina state line.
The $5.3 million, 23.65-mile project was completed in early May.
Now it’s Gwinnett’s turn.
The state will install the same type barriers along grassy medians from Ga. 20, near the Mall of Georgia, to Franklin County (about 40 miles).
Construction on the $9 million project, as well as a separate $7 million installation that takes in I-985 up to Exit 24 (about 24 miles), is scheduled to begin next year, Pope told me.
The barriers are 4 feet tall with woven horizontal cables that are supported with vertical steel posts and concrete foundations. The posts, which absorb the impact of the vehicle, are designed to be replaced.
In the USA Today article, transportation experts touted the low cost and high success rate of cable barriers.
Cable costs about 30 percent less than steel and 50 percent less than concrete. The Utah Department of Transportation installed the barriers in a nine-mile test area susceptible to median crossovers, according to the article.
The number of fatalities related to crossovers dropped from 12 to zilch over a two-year period.
David Studstill, the Georgia DOT’s chief engineer, praised their effectiveness.
“It’s like running into a barrier on an aircraft carrier,” he told me.
“It basically catches you before you go over the median.”
And, it is hoped, saves lives.
— Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
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By Katie
June 27, 2007 5:37 AM | Link to this
The death of Thomas Brown is very sad. However, accidents involving deaths would be even more greatly reduced if people were to pay attention while driving. Who know’s what happened with Mr.Brown, there could have been a problem with his car. Many (if not most) accidents are caused by people using cell phones, not using turn signals, driving cars in poor condition, changing radio stations, excessively speeding or doing anything other than watching the traffic in front and around them. Paying attention is free and doesn’t cost the tax payers a dime. Imagine that. Where are the police? Oh, that’s right, they too are on the list for not using turn signals, speeding and talking on cell phones. I haven’t seen any cops pulling people over on the highway in at least a month. Accidents could also be avoided if the police were out there diligently ticketing poor drivers on a daily basis.
By harold
June 27, 2007 8:29 AM | Link to this
he is just one of 45,000 americans who volunteer to die for our transportation system every year
millions of us volunteer to go to the ER with serious injuries for our transportation system too
our government believes this is our acceptable loss for the “convenience” of having to purchase maintain and operate our own motor vehicles at great personal expense
how the government gets away with supplying HALF a transportation system (face it- roads are useless unless you buy yourself a vehicle of some sort) is beyond harold. it is pure negligence.
if our government wants to be in the transportation business, they need to do it 100% all the way. They need to provide paths AND vehicles. This can be rails with trains or roads with cars. That’s right. Harold said it. The government should have to provide us all with a car to go with the otherwise useless roads we are all taxed to pay for. but that does not address the sacrifices of our innocents to the GDOT (anagram TGOD, or Transoprtation GOD). To avoid sacrificing our youths to the TGOD we need commuter trains.
White folks think commuter trains are scary and they will get killed. Well any time anybody gets so much as a paper cut in a Marta station it is front page news on the AJC. Do motor vehicle relatied injuries make the news? Nope. You have to get killed and in a sensational all-lanes-of-traffic halting manner to make the front page of the appropriate Metro section
If the AJC made as big a deal of motor vehcile fatalities as they did the biannual “near a Marta bus stop” murder in Capitol Heights (having nothing to do with the Marta bus stop, but it was nearby), then everybody would be paralyzed with fear about driving rather than fear about Marta.
The AJC sells car ads. That’s where their ad revenue comes from. Thus , the AJC makes cars look great and safe and make Marta look awful and dangerous when it’s exactly the opposite situation.
Until the AJC is brought to justice for this injustice they will be culpable in our contiuation of the age old rituals of sacfiricing youths to gods.. Here in the ATL we kill our youths for the TGOD to grant us passage to work without having to sit near smelly strangers. Yeah that’s worth it. Stupid donkeys.
By harold 2
June 27, 2007 8:38 AM | Link to this
Harold is right. The more “safety” features get added to roads, the more like commuter trains they become. Huh. Why not just build the commuter trains and save these lives?
Are commuter trains too expensive compared to roads? Maybe they are presented that way, but that’s because the GDOT does not include the costs of private vehicle ownership and operation and gasoline in their “roads vs rails” cost analysis. Add a $25,000+ car for everybody on the roads (they all cost at least that much the first time they are bought) plus maintenance and gasoline and commuter rail becomes a huge bargain.
THe lovejoy line wasnt supposed to pay for itself for 44 years according to its DETRACTORS. But when will I-75 pay for itself? Never! It’s been there 40+ years and now it wants $4 billion MORE!
What a joke cars and the people who drive them are.
If none of us had to pay for a car, we could all retire at age 50.
By WTF?
June 27, 2007 8:41 AM | Link to this
Harold…
Blank Stare
You want the government to buy a car for you and maintain it? What part of ‘driving is a privledge’ don’t you understand? You are welcome to walk or ride a bike if you want. And you make a huge generalization of the white population. I am white and am not skeered to take public transportation. I don’t because it’s dirty and not convenient for my working schedule. Not to mention the errands I do on my way home. Of course I work and can afford to drive and maintain my own vehicle. Maybe those that can’t afford to buy and maintain a vehicle shouldn’t drive. That would certainly remove many from our roads. I like that alternative much better.
By HAROLD
June 27, 2007 9:24 AM | Link to this
driving is NOT a privledge
driving is half of the public transportation system the government taxes us to pay for
if you cannt drive you are taxated without representation (driving)
can you afford your vehicle? really can you? instead of your vehicle you could take a european vacation EVERY YEAR. think of everything you are missing out on because of paying for a stupid car and gasoline.
how about those who dont own their own vehicle dont have to pay a dime towards roads? roads should pay for themselves. roads should be held to the same standard as commuter rail. but that will never happen because the TGOD is too powerful.
how would WTF? feel if the government provided schools that were EMPTY and parents had to buy their own teachers? huh? that is the educational equivalent of what they are doing to us with public roads. roads a huge rip off and it is killing everybody
you think your car is cleaner than marta? not likely. pepole just dont care beucase you made the mess and smell in your car.
By WTF?
June 27, 2007 2:23 PM | Link to this
Harold, Driving IS a privledge. Do you think licenses are given with birth certificates? Is driving mentioned in our Bill of Rights? I think not. You have to EARN your license by taking a test and passing it as well as an actual driving test. I would agree that more licenses need to be denied and driving laws stricter but driving is not a right—sorry to break that news to you.
I lived in Europe (Ireland, Italy and France) and could travel there for vacation every year if I chose to, however, I like other areas and sometimes like to vacation at home. I can still pay for my SUV and the gas it likes to guzzle—as long as the US sells large vehicles I will drive one if I choose. I went to college, became educated and have a job. I can afford my lifestyle. I also have a savings account, retirement and investments. I in no way depend on our government and I really don’t care to use public transit or the thought of being forced to. You, my friend, sound like a bitter unhappy person. My car does not smell like pee or vomit unlike marta trains. 85% of my property tax goes to schools and for the education of children I don’t even have. So don’t you try to lecture on things you know nothing about.
By WTF?
June 27, 2007 2:24 PM | Link to this
Harold, Driving IS a privledge. Do you think licenses are given with birth certificates? Is driving mentioned in our Bill of Rights? I think not. You have to EARN your license by taking a test and passing it as well as an actual driving test. I would agree that more licenses need to be denied and driving laws stricter but driving is not a right—sorry to break that news to you.
I lived in Europe (Ireland, Italy and France) and could travel there for vacation every year if I chose to, however, I like other areas and sometimes like to vacation at home. I can still pay for my SUV and the gas it likes to guzzle—as long as the US sells large vehicles I will drive one if I choose. I went to college, became educated and have a job. I can afford my lifestyle. I also have a savings account, retirement and investments. I in no way depend on our government and I really don’t care to use public transit or the thought of being forced to. You, my friend, sound like a bitter unhappy person. My car does not smell like pee or vomit unlike marta trains. 85% of my property tax goes to schools and for the education of children I don’t even have. So don’t you try to lecture on things you know nothing about.
By harold
June 27, 2007 3:13 PM | Link to this
Driving is NOT a privilege. Locomotion is our right guaranteed in the USA constertution.
The “driving is a privilege” high school civics lesson is there so you dont question why the government half asses our transportation system, giving us only roads and going “The rest is YOUR problem. You figure it out.”
They try to sell driving as something for the privileged but they tax everyone to pay for the roads. SPLOSTs and federal and state income tax pay for 75% of road costs. That leaves a quarter of the funds coming from driving based costs such as taxoline and vehicle fees.
The roads should either pay for themselves via tollbooths or they should be REAL public transporation by coming with free cars for the public’s use. Roads without vehicles are a cop out.
If you still want to drive whatever car you have, go ahead, but the government should be supplying us with a COMPLETE transportation system, and one that does not kill everybody at the rate of 9000% of the Al Qaeda rate since 9/11/2001.
That’s great about your former residences and vacations WTF but you are missing the point that the government is ripping us off by claiming to provide us with a transportation system but then requiring that we pay more than the cost of an annual european vacation in addition to the taxes we pay for roads just to be able to use the otherwise useless roads. the old joke “that road dont go nowhere. it just sits here” comes to mind.
they want $4 billions to expand I-75 and for what? for nothing. everybody still needs to spend tens of thosands of more dollars on their own for cars to make any damned use of it.
That’s all Harold is saying.
and anyway back to mister badie’s topic .. why try to make driving slightly less dangerous? it is huge expense for drop in the safety bucket. public transit is the only safe transit. instead of 45000 dead annually on our roads we could have 20 or 30 drunks falling off the platform and getting squished by an arriving train. if the USA governmetn could save 44970 american lives every year plus millions in the ER they maybe they might be worth the paper the constitution is printered on. instead they talk about national healthcare which really is just trying to compenstate for automobile based issues.. remove those milllions from the ER every year due to car crashes and you wouldnt even notice the illegals in the ER nwo woudl you? there woudl be no line! Grady shut down? So what? The shot thugs can just die, and if everybody is on the commuter train then nobody else would end up at the grady
By patrick
June 27, 2007 8:33 PM | Link to this
Never understood how 40,000 people dying per year was ever seen as “acceptable” by anyone. Millions injured per year. Driving in Atlanta on a daily basis is a life-threatening adventure.
Here’s what needs to happen: Make the driver’s test extremely hard and get a lot of terrible drivers off the road. And invest in making public transport worth using, so that we don’t have to drive every time we want to go somewhere.
By Chalk Person
June 27, 2007 11:37 PM | Link to this
Hey, harold, between your conversating & being all taxated, here is some grist for your noir-vision: ajc is owned by Cox, which also owns Manheim. Don’t know who/what Manheim is? Google it, brutha. And, BTW, it’s been a privilege to enlighten you. (Not literally, of course).
By WTF?
June 28, 2007 5:43 AM | Link to this
People who do not drive cars have to pay taxes that pay for roads just as I have to pay school taxes although I do not have (or want) any children. The point being that we are all taxed for things we may not use or want. Did you know you are also taxed at death? Now that one has always stumped me. the US government bends everyone over and gives them a howdy ride—plain and simple.
By harold
June 28, 2007 9:25 AM | Link to this
Sorry WTF, paying for government roads is not like paying for government schools.
Government schools are complete systems (bad as they may be, they are in fact complete). They are land and buildings that have supplies and equipment and teachers and buses and books and lockers etc. People do not have to buy their own teachers to make use of public schools.
Public roads are incomplete useless systems. Roads themselves alone do the public no good whatsoever. To many any use of them, people have to purchase their own vehicle and gasoline and maps and oil and tires etc.
See, this makes schools and roads totally different. Schools are complete. You get waht you pay for with your taxes (even if it’s bad). Roads are not a complete transporation system. They are useless alone. The government should not in the business of providing useless transportation facitilies. They should provide public transporation or nothing at all, but them providng roads is just a huge rip off on everybody.
Roads for private cars should be privately owned and paid for by their users. Othewrise if the roads are public then the cars on them must be public too. The government should give all of us a ford fusion or get out of the road business.