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Protection is paramount with Saferoads

When Saferoads started to develop the new HV2 Barrier they wrote a 10-point wish list for the ideal features of a temporary safety barrier.

The brand-new HV2 Barrier from Saferoads is designed to not only protect workers and the travelling public, but also simplify and speed up barrier placement and retrieval.

Saferoads has been serving the road construction industry for over 25 years. Throughout COVID-19, the company will continue to supply the latest, critical safety equipment for essential services and road projects.

To continue to improve its safety equipment offering, the company has just released the new HV2 Barrier, designed in Australia, focused on simplicity and increased protection.

Around eight years ago the company created its first hybrid safety barrier, a freestanding temporary barrier system to protect road workers and the public called the Ironman Hybrid Barrier.

While this barrier has been a success for the company, the Saferoads team wanted to investigate if they could improve their product.

Darren Hotchkin, Saferoads CEO, says when the company started to develop the new HV2 Barrier they wrote a 10-point wish list for the ideal features of a temporary safety barrier. Once the list was established, the design for the HV2 Barrier began to form.

“The Ironman Hybrid was our first attempt at a temporary safety barrier. The HV2 is the second generation. Everything we learnt from the Ironman we have employed, with increased efficiency for the HV2 Barrier,” Mr. Hotchkin says.

“With the Ironman Hybrid Barrier, we learnt that enabling the barrier to better use it’s up and down stream mass results in better containment of the oncoming vehicle.”

A key feature of the new HV2 barrier is its containment ability. The HV2 will safely contain a 10-tonne truck in line with the Manual of Assessing Safety Hardware (MASH) standard test level four. The highest capacity test Saferoads performed in the MASH standard was the 4-12, which is a 10-tonne truck, impacting at 90 kilometers per hour on a 15-degree angle.

For the Saferoads team, simply increasing the strength of the barriers wasn’t enough, they also wanted to improve productivity for customers.

It was important to achieve increased efficiency when setting up the HV2 Barrier, so it has been designed to perform without being anchored to the road surface.

“As the barrier uses its weight distribution to contain vehicles upon impact, there is no need to secure it to the road surface. Removing the need for anchoring saves time and also removes the need to damage the road crews are working on, as there is no need to drill holes,” Mr. Hotchkin says.

He says road pavements tend to vary in their construction, so contractors can’t be sure the surface they are using to anchor the barrier will perform the same as the test surface.

“A freestanding barrier like HV2 doesn’t need to rely on the pavement underneath. You don’t have to fix holes when you are finished. This removes the risk of thinking it will work when anchored and then finding out through an accident that the pavement wasn’t strong enough to hold the barrier in place.”

The HV2 Barrier can be used on any flat surface. The barriers are also able to turn on a tight radius to protect worksites on curved roads such as at roundabouts or intersections.

“Having a barrier that can go around a reasonable radius is critical. The HV2 Barrier can simply be angled when it is put in place to curve around a corner. It makes the barrier more versatile and user friendly,” Mr. Hotchkin says.   

Connection points on the barriers are simplified, there is no need for pins or bolts.

Another aspect the Saferoads team wanted to enhance on the HV2 Barrier is the simplicity of transporting, installing and retrieving the product.

Each barrier weighs approximately two tonnes, with an overall length of 5.85 metres. This enables users to load a large number of barriers onto a truck, to ensure installation is swift.

Connection points are also simplified, there is no need for pins and bolts. Each piece of the barrier system connects by dropping the next section into place.

“If there is an emergency and you need to get the barrier apart, or even for access in and out of the worksite, you can simply lift any HV2 out of the line of barriers,” Mr. Hotchkin says.

“When a barrier is damaged by an impact, you can pull one part out and put another one in its place, a whole system replacement isn’t needed.”

Due to the reduced weight of the barrier, contractors can use lower cost weightlifting equipment to install the barriers.

“Because of the materials we use, despite the low weight, the barrier shouldn’t collapse or break on impact. The outer casting is steel and the patented connection system is extremely highly graded casting to enable the barriers to stay connected and not deform upon impact,” he says.

Mr. Hotchkin says the HV2 Barrier has just been approved by all state and territory road agencies in Australia and also in New Zealand, and are now ready to be purchased by companies wanting to add this asset to a rental fleet or to use on roadside construction sites.

In New Zealand long time Saferoads partner, CSP Pacific have already bought a fleet of HV2 Barriers. CSP Pacific are major New Zealand supplier of civil road construction and road safety products.

The organisation rent a range of road safety products to third parties and have been involved in projects throughout New Zealand and the South Pacific for the last four decades.

The company decided to add the latest Saferoads barriers into their fleet to provide customers with a barrier that can be deployed efficiently.

David Russell, National Hire Manager at CSP Pacific, says that the HV2 Barrier was chosen over other steel crash barriers due to its low deflection. Mr. Russel was also impressed with its freestanding ability.

“No pinning is the advantage, and I think its radius is the best of all the steel barriers,” he says.

Being unanchored, the deployment and retrieval of HV2 Barrier is a speedy process for CSP Pacific customers, which include many construction companies. This is due to the innovative connection system that allows the task to be completed even faster.

“A comment from our customer who has been installing barriers for 20 years was that this is the best and quickest barrier he has ever used,” Mr. Russell says.

Mr. Hotchkin says that it is incredibly important to ensure all roadside sites have quality protection for workers and the public. He says working without a barrier is extremely high risk and there are many incidents that can occur.

“For example, an accidental impact to a distracted driver or someone with a medical issue; any errant vehicle creates a high-risk situation to the workers on site. Barriers also protect the travelling public from going into a work zone and impacting a large piece of construction equipment or falling into a large excavation,” he says.

“This year we hope to promote the HV2 Barrier across Australia and New Zealand projects, and we are also gaining approvals for the barrier’s use in American and Canadian states.”

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