Highway safety has a long history, but the advancement of motor travel has followed an exponential growth, whether that be in vehicle features, speed, and number. This has meant that highway safety has had to keep up over the course of this time. Valtir, highway safety experts out of Addison, Texas, say that where the highway is concerned, there has been a veritable explosion of safety features over only the last few decades.Moreover,this is a process of development and innovation that continues unabated.

When trying to outline the extent of safety on the highway though, it is important that we don’t get too impressed by its breadth and forget that the most effective safety feature of all is still good driving. That means that there will never be a time when driving down these long, wide roads at top speeds is not something that does not require qualified and safety conscious drivers behind the wheel. There are highway safety tips that apply to drivers, and these should still be deferred to, no matter how good the highway safety infrastructure is.

Highway Safety and Drivers

So, before going on to the major highway safety features that are making our fast lanes safer, it is wise covering an overview of what it means to be a good driver on the highway today. Naturally, much of this is covered in the theory and practical components of any driving license examination.

Drivers must still take care during adverse weather or when driving at night,and they must still give the appropriate space to larger vehicles and account for the reduced visibility that these vehicles cause for both their drivers and the drivers around them on the road. They must also know how to drive at the correct speed, as driving too slowly or too fast can be dangerous on the highway.

Nevertheless, another large part of driving safely on the highway is to know about highway safety features because you need to interact with them. Much of this is understanding all the highway signage, which probably accounts for the most diverse highway safety measure in place. Drivers also need to know how to use highway safety features to their advantage.

The Top Highway Safety Features

So, with the particularly important point that much depends on the conduct of the driver out of the way, here follows some of the modern highway safety features which are keeping fast-moving drivers safe today:

Wider Lanes

Quite simply, wider lanes offer cars more room to maneuver and stay out of the way of those larger vehicles that require more space. More than anything else, widening America’s roads has been the primary response to increased traffic.

Central Barriers

Oncoming crashes are, naturally enough, the most disastrous and uniformly fatal of all. The impact of such a crash is effectively doubled. Accordingly, highway crash cushions and central barriers on expressways are there to stop this happening.

Bridge Safety

Bridges over bodies of water have been around on our roads for a long time, but many were not designed for modern levels of traffic. Bridge reinforcements as well as rails and barriers have steadily augmented the nations bridges in recent decades.

Safety Drums

Sand- or liquid-filled safety drums are there to reduce the force of an impact when it happens. These materials absorb a large amount of the shock and thereby reduce the severity of an accident.

These are the safety features that have sprung up only fairly recently on our roads, but they have done so quickly and will continue to expand at this impressive rate.