Horrifying footage shows the moment a barrier saves a driver from a head-on crash with a truck. Video / Supplied
Frightening footage has emerged of a car slamming into a newly installed flexible barrier, which has being hailed a lifesaver after it prevented the vehicle from causing a head-on crash with an oncoming truck.
In footage provided by New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, a car can be seen coming around a bend on SH1 in Dome Valley between Warkworth and Wellford.
The driver then misread the bend before losing control and smashing straight into the flexible barrier separating the lanes, causing it to slide a number of metres and causing the barrier to fold over on itself.
The incident happened in January. The driver walked away from the crash thanks to the flexible safety barrier.
Waka Kotahi posted the video as an educational tool on what happens when you crash into a flexible median barrier, and explained how it’s designed to save your life.
“The flexible median barrier stopped this head-on crash between a car and a truck. These barriers slow you down when you crash, keep you upright, and stop you from driving into oncoming traffic,” Waka Kotahi explained in the video.
Waka Kotahi senior road safety manager Fabian Marsh told the Herald that the barrier is designed specifically to save lives and instead of acting as a hardened barrier, it “catches” cars, absorbing impact and prevents it from crossing the road and causing a head-on collision.
It is also designed to avoid your body from absorbing a lot of the impact.
Terrifying footage captured the moment a car smashed into a flexible safety barrier. Photo / Waka Kotahi
“The installation of flexible safety barriers on state highways across New Zealand is part of the Government’s Road to Zero strategy. Together with the rollout of safer speed limits, targeted police enforcement and advances in vehicle safety technology, safety barriers are helping to prevent crashes, saving lives and reducing the number of people seriously injured on our roads.
“Flexible road safety barriers ‘catch’ vehicles before they hit something harder – like a pole, a tree or another vehicle heading in the opposite direction. The barriers can be installed down the middle of a road to prevent head-on collisions or along the side of the road to help stop run-off-road crashes.
“If you hit a flexible barrier, the steel cables will flex, slowing down your vehicle and keeping it upright. Crucially, the barriers also absorb the impact of the crash so that your body doesn’t bear the brunt of the crash forces.
“They are a highly effective and cost-effective road safety tool that have proven to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured in crashes by up to 90 per cent at locations where they are installed.”
The median barrier at Dome Valley where the crash happened was installed in August 2022.
It has been struck several times since, with Waka Kotahi saying they’re aware of four significant barrier strikes on this section of highway during the Christmas-New Year period alone.
In 2005 along the Centennial Highway just north of Wellington, 2.5km of flexible median barriers was installed.
In the four years to 2000, there were eight recorded fatalities. In the four years after the flexible barrier was installed, there were no fatal or major injury crashes.
