Dividers that absorb impact of road accidents needed on LPT2

KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Institute of Road Safety Research has proposed that road safety dividers that can absorb the impact of crashes on the East Coast Highway 2 (LPT2) be installed due to frequent accidents at the highway.
Its road safety engineering and environment research centre director Dr Siti Zaharah Ishak said improvements like the provision of 'crash cushions' equipped with safety features could reduce the impact when an accident occurred.
She added the use of dividers without the crash cushion or with the crash cushion could give differing impacts, for example, when a car crashed at high speed onto the final terminal without the crash cushion, this could lead to fatality.
But the impact at the same speed can reduce the risk to serious injury as it had been absorbed by the cushion, she told Bernama.
She was commenting on the frequent accidents reported on LPT2 since it was opened last Jan 31, including the latest involving Bernama Editor-in-Chief Datuk Zakaria Abdul Wahab at Km395.4 of the highway near Ajil, on Monday.
She also proposed having speed-trap cameras like the Automatic Enforcement System (AES) to reduce the number of road users exceeding the permitted speed on the highway.
She said motorists should also improve the safety system of their vehicles through the electronic stability control (ESC) system to avoid the vehicle from spinning during accidents.
The attitude of road users who exceeded the speed limit of 110kph was perceived to be among the factors contributing to accidents on the LPT2, she said.
A study done last October found that 65% of vehicles were driven at more than the speed limit of 110kph, with the maximum being 179kph, while the average speed for passenger cars was 129kph, and heavy vehicles at 93kph, she said. — Bernama