Britpave, the British Cementitious Paving Association, says that the increasing number of heavy electric cars means that the programme to replace steel motorway barriers with concrete should be accelerated.
The average weight of a petrol or diesel car is 1.5 tonnes whereas electric vehicles usually weigh between 1.8 to 2.2 tonnes due to extra weight of banks of batteries. Existing steel barriers only have to comply with design standards that were tested using 1.5-tonne cars. The safety standards for steel barriers are failing to taking into account the increase weight of electric cars and this could potentially lead to crossover accidents where vehicles crash through central barriers into the path of oncoming traffic, Britpave says.
National Highways commissioned the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) in 2023 to undertake a £30,000 study to assess the impact heavier electric vehicles have on crash barriers. The findings have yet to be published.
In comparison to steel barriers, concrete barriers are able to contain errant 4×4 cars, light vans, buses, coaches and lorries of up to 13.5 tonnes. In 2005 the Department for Transport made concrete barriers the default option for motorways where the average annual daily traffic level is 25,000 vehicles per day and where steel barriers need replacing having reached the end of their 20-year life. In 2022, National Highways started a three-year programme to replace 63 miles of steel barriers with concrete on sections of the M6, M62, M42, M1, M4 and M5.
Britpave chairman Joe Quirke said: “Concrete barriers offer unrivalled strength, safety and whole life performance benefits. These benefits are recognised by the Department for Transport and National Highways who have a programme to replace steel barriers with concrete. The increased weight of electric vehicles – for which steel barriers were never designed for – means that that programme should be accelerated and a similar safety programme be considered for dual carriageways.”
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