Picture this: You’re cruising down a mountain road well within the proper speed limits. The landscape passes by with the bright blue sky above and the green valleys below. As you round the corner though, you realize a portion of the highway has no guardrails! You immediately slow down as you carefully navigate this new stretch of road, wondering all the while, “Why do the guardrails on this highway cut off?”
There are a few possible answers to this question, but let’s start with the lack of stability. Guardrails are present to provide an added barrier between your vehicle and the area outside the road. On a high-up mountain road, these guardrails would keep your vehicle from hurtling off the edge into the abyss.
However, the narrow roads aren’t always wide enough to fit a set of guardrails. What’s more, there are locations where the cliff edge lacks stability. In those cases, even if there was a guardrail there, it wouldn’t do much to prevent a fall. In some cases, it might even become a hazard that vehicles might hit. Local transport departments sometimes add shoulders to highway edges, delineators, and rumble strips instead of guardrails. These additions prevent vehicles from going off the highway and make better use of the available space.
Highway guardrails are expensive. Installing guardrails can cost between $40 and $80 per square linear foot of highway, and that’s a lot given the miles and miles of highway out there. Local transport departments identify the most risk-prone areas and allocate their budgets accordingly. They determine when guardrails are required on roads. That’s why some roads have guardrails while others don’t. While installing guardrails can save the state money in the long run in terms of damages, the initial installation isn’t cheap. That’s why they need to choose which roads get guardrails and which ones don’t.
In some national and state parks, it’s illegal to put up structures that can affect the scenic views. Because some guardrail designs can be intrusive, it’s possible there aren’t any guardrails along some national and state park roads thanks to this law.
Guardrails can actually give a false sense of security to drivers when they’re on a dangerous road. The added safety feature on the road can make them complacent while driving, and that can lead to accidents. The lack of a guardrail increases driver awareness and caution. They’d naturally slow down and take more care while going around corners. While local transportation departments wouldn’t omit the guardrails solely to promote cautious driving, the added caution from drivers does help reduce accidents along the road. With fewer accidents in the area, it means that that road might not need guardrails as much as other roads.
Some mountainous roads lack guardrails, and many suggest that it’s to help facilitate snowplow work. The wide snowplows would have a difficult time navigating already-narrow mountain roads. In addition, if there were guardrails, the plowed snow might accumulate along the guardrail and build up, which would defeat the purpose of plowing the roads in the first place. This is part of the reason why there are no guardrails on the Million Dollar Highway in Colorado.
Finally, let’s look at why guardrails exist and their purpose on the road. When present, guardrails serve to shield motorists who end up leaving the road after losing control of their vehicle. Guardrail systems consist of the guardrail, the posts, the connection between the guardrail and the posts, the soil that the posts drive into, the end terminal, and the anchoring system at the end terminal.
The ideal scenario in most cases is for the vehicle to come to a stop on its own, losing momentum without hitting any obstacles or barriers. However, this isn’t always possible, nor is it the safest option in some areas.
For example, should the road be surrounded by steep slopes or a forest, an out-of-control vehicle would suffer a worse fate if it left the road at all. That’s where guardrails come in. Local transportation departments choose to install these sturdy metal rails in areas where hitting them is preferable to careening off a cliff or the like. The rails ultimately mitigate the risks for most motorists when driving in unsafe areas. As we’ve shown though, these rails don’t work in every situation.
Now you know the reasons why some highways don’t have guardrails. Sometimes, it’s a matter of budget, and other times, it’s that the road can’t hold them securely. Whatever the case might be, remember to slow down and take care whenever you find yourself on one of these roads.
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