How Do Tire Marks Get On The Guardrail?

[the Chools]

Here in Houston, on a particular highway ramp that is quite curved and runs directly over another highway, way up high, there are MANY black marks on the concrete guard rail. The protective rail is wider at the bottom and is about 30" high, maybe 36".

Those look like tire marks to me, as they are wide and black, and don't look like paint. And in some of them, you can clearly see the tire treads.

Question: How on Earth do they get there? Do they come from huge trucks that ram a tire into the wall? Or does each mark mean that a car actually ran a tire up the wall? - that would mean the car was tipping over and came very close to going over the wall and down onto the highway below. I just can't imagine that many serious near-misses.

[SlowDownThere]

You ask some very entertaining questions. :)

I have a close personal friend that is always asking me things like this. If you lived in Tuscon, I would think you were she.

[jeffIL]

wtf...you ask a lot of questions. Tires get on places when tires hit said places.

[deputy x 2]

Yes Chools is very entertaining with her questions.

K rails or K walls are designed to keep cars on their side of the roadway. Yes those marks are tires....obviously the driver(s) were taking the turn a little too hot! :eek: :eek: :eek:

[the Chools]

I KNOW those cars were going too fast and cut the curve too sharply.... What I am asking is, what was it like for the driver? Was the car, like, turned on its side? Did the vehicle roll over? Did the guy fly over the concrete rail and crash below? Did he roll around it like one of those stunt bicycle riders, and then his vehicle righted itself and he went along his merry way? like nothing happened?

An 18-wheeler running his tire into the wall, I can understand.

But a compact car running the bottom surface of his spinning tires along 11' of horizontal wall - and not dieing - THAT's what I want to understand.


Oh, where did the Trucker go? HE would know.

[Guams]

I KNOW those cars were going too fast and cut the curve too sharply.... What I am asking is, what was it like for the driver? Was the car, like, turned on its side? Did the vehicle roll over? Did the guy fly over the concrete rail and crash below? Did he roll around it like one of those stunt bicycle riders, and then his vehicle righted itself and he went along his merry way? like nothing happened?

An 18-wheeler running his tire into the wall, I can understand.

But a compact car running the bottom surface of his spinning tires along 11' of horizontal wall - and not dieing - THAT's what I want to understand.


Oh, where did the Trucker go? HE would know.




That's not what you asked before. As for these new questions, each tire mark is going to have it's own story. You can only speculate on what happened. Maybe if you sit and watch long enough, you'll see one get put there.

[t150vsuptpr]

The ones that start at the bottom and go up just a little and come back down, usually just result in one scared sh*tl*ss driver and a screwed wheel allignment.

The ones that start at the bottom and which climb the wall, often looking like they went over the top, usually result in the vehicle being rolled back into it's lane on it's side at least, and often on it's roof. Better than going into an oncoming lane or for a 200 foot drop.

Those are generalities, I haven't seen the ones you are referring to, but I can imagine as cars tend to behave the same when they do the same stuff like running up on those walls.

I used to hear them called "Jersey Walls", and then I found that they were used extensively in Ca., and etc. A web search for "Jersey Walls" or Jersey Barricades" is an idea. They do work and there is quite an evolution to them in any case.

:)

[1042 Trooper]

Ah yes, Jersey Barriers. We use them quite a bit in construction zones.

The markings? They are quite similar to those left in one's shorts at the same precise moment they are made, when half of the seat cover is sucked up into the rectum.

[PhilipCal]

Yah Chools, that's also called the "pucker factor".

[pressm4n]

Ah yes, Jersey Barriers. We use them quite a bit in construction zones. The markings? They are quite similar to those left in one's shorts at the same precise moment they are made, when half of the seat cover is sucked up into the rectum.

HAHA 1042-trooper nice answer I like that....

[DOAcop38]

HAHA 1042-trooper nice answer I like that....


and if your are patrolling on a quiet weekend in the wee hours of the morning and see debris and tire marks on one of them,you need only look a few hundred feet farther and your DUI T/C will be HAPPILY sitting there.......

[saranac]

It sounds like you are looking at Jersey walls. They are designed to replace the step up that you see on older bridges. A step up easily allows a vehicle to ramp over the rail. A Jersey wall somehow sucks the car to it and leaves a large long tire make along the rail. The tire mark is made by the sidewall of the tire so it can be made by a small vehicle or a big truck.

[grumpyirishman]

Remember the scene from M.I.B. where they drove on the roof of the tunnel???

[Taylor1430]

We have plenty of the Jersey walls here, and they seemed to be designed to allow the car to ride up on it and then back down. I have seen cars sort of brush them (not a hard angle impact), ride up a few feet off the ground and then back down without any visibile body damage to the vehicle (as for their alignment, I guess that would be a different story).