Cable barriers help prevent crossover highway fatalities

The statistics are remarkable: Fatalities from crossover accidents on Missouri's interstate highways have dropped dramatically, from 55 in the year before cable barriers were installed to two since hundreds of miles of the cables were put in medians.

Forty-four miles of cables have been put up along Interstate 55 from the Oak Ridge exit north of Cape Girardeau to the Sikeston exit.

Crossover accidents occur when vehicles traveling one direction cross the highway median into traffic traveling the opposite direction. Since 2004, the Missouri Department of Transportation has put up barriers along I-70, I-44, I-29 and I-55. This year MoDOT will be adding barriers along divided U.S. highways around the state.

When the barrier program was started in 2004, MoDOT put the cables mounted on posts that are anchored in concrete foundations in the middle of medians along I-70, but flooding in the low-lying centers required costly repairs. Now the cable-and-post barriers are placed close to the highway shoulder, which provides a more stable base and facilitates repairs, MoDOT says.,

The crossover barriers are among the ways MoDOT continues to make driving safer in Missouri. Getting more motorists to use seat belts is still a major goal. There were 1,257 traffic fatalities in the state in 2005. That number dropped to 941 last year, of which 479 were not wearing seat belts.