I'm going to pass your views to a number of people who may have further comments. The only one that immediately springs to mind is that the majority of central road collisions will be at high speed, so injury with any type of barrier is innevitable.

The wire ropes were tested on Trucks and found to be effective, by the way. I would have thought that at first glance they would be ineffective with trucks, but apparently they work in a similar way to the devices that catch aircaft that crash into safety nets (the ropes catch round the axle etc.) A vision of rocket man bikers comes to mind in a humourous way. Armco has the same effect on bikes though (head on).

Chicago Barriers are quite neat in that objects slide unhindered. They are however completely un-yielding. Not seen any accident stats with them to form a proper opinion, but I did see the remains of a car that had hit one head on (funnily enough, in Chicago back in May), there wasn't a lot left.

Re: outside of central curves. This equates to the inside of the curve on the otherside of the road yes? Momentum will make bikes slide away on one side and into on the other?

Definate difference between road side and road centre

-- Craig A Carey-Clinch.

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