Life Saving Roadside Tech Put To The Ultimate Test

Ageing infrastructure still causes many road deaths, so we check out the cutting-edge kit – from lamp posts to barriers for roadworkers – aiming to reverse the trend

- Martin Saarinen

Every now and then a practical demonstration has a far better impact than a highly detailed engineering report packed with facts. Ramming two cars into street lamps to show how a simple change of construction can save lives is an example of this.

One of the lamp posts is a conventional steel design, found on roads and motorways around the UK; the other is an aluminium, passive safety post that’s slowly becoming more common across the network.

In the first collision, with the original lamp, the driver and passengers would all have died, while in the other, they would have walked away unscathed with nothing but a dented bonnet to show for their impact with the new, safer, cutting-edge design.

Britain’s roadside infrastructure is heading towards a major upgrade in terms of tech and safety. To find out what highways agencies and various tech companies have in store for us, Auto Express visited the Traffex Seeing is Believing road safety conference at Brunting thorpe, Leicestershire.

The number of road fatalities is on the rise in the UK. In 2016, there were 1,792 people killed on our roads, a four per cent increase from the previous year and the highest number recorded by the Department for Transport since 2011.

While road accidents come in many forms, any mitigation and prevention is a step in the right direction. Upgrading lamp posts and street signs to ‘passive’ versions will help reduce fatalities and injuries from vehicles that have lost control.

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“Passive safety systems have been around for years. The first passive sign post was developed in Finland back in 2002,” says Ian McDonald, national sales manager at Pole Products.