A few images sent along by Dave Carr:
Looks like the guardrail did its job here, keeping the SUV out of the ditch, right? Well, not quite the way the traffic engineer thought it would:
Ripped the guardrail off the posts like a ribbon.
Here’s the real story from D.R. Stinson:
It wasn’t caused by texting. This was a college student from Washington state headed east to school a couple years ago as I recall. He got started late and had been driving too long. He was tired and fell asleep at the wheel. As lucky as he was that day, he should have bought a lottery ticket. He walked away with nothing more than dirty laundry. If you know Montana, it’s on I-90 just north of Deer Lodge, in the southbound lane. I drive through there dozens of times a year, and it always comes to mind when I go past it.
Actually, the guardrail is supposed to peel, but what it isn’t supposed to do is pierce the vehicle’s firewall. Something on the leading edge of the guardrail had to have been already damaged or incorrectly installed for the guardrail to not go under or around the vehicle.
Comment by Junk Science Skeptic — March 4, 2011 @ 14:15
This is a case of “it worked in practice, but not in theory” 😉
Still, it was good to hear that the driver wasn’t injured.
Comment by Nicholas — March 4, 2011 @ 15:16