Debate about rumble strips

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Debate about rumble strips
Schumann

counselor

traffic & business

Debate about rumble strips

Debate about rumble strips
Last groove

So-called rumble strips are intended to defuse notorious accident stretches for motorcyclists, because otherwise there is a risk of closures. Curse or blessing? The skepticism is usually wrong, as the facts show.

Brigitte Haschek, Michael Schumann

08/14/2014

MOTORRAD reader Dejan Kirchberger is pissed off. “Thanks to all the idiots who mistake a country road for a racetrack,” he railed. Why is Kirchberger so furious? “In order to slow down speeders on the Kesselberg, rumble strips are now being applied,” the passionate motorcyclist wrote to the editorial team in early March 2014. Please, which mountain? There is talk of Bavaria’s most dangerous two-wheeler route: from the Kesselberg on the B 11 between Kochelsee and Walchensee in the Bad Tolz-Wolfratshausen district. Within three years (2011 to 2013) there were a total of 18 serious motorcycle accidents with fatalities or serious injuries on a section only 1000 meters long. The same applies to Sudelfeld, about 60 kilometers to the east, in the Miesbach district, which is part of the Bayrischzell municipality. During the same period, a total of 14 heaviest motorcycle collisions were recorded there – half of them alone in the curve in front of the well-known scene-meeting Cafe Kotz.

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In May, the responsible authorities pulled the rip cord: So-called vibrating strips were installed on both routes to slow down motorcyclists who are traveling faster than the police allow. “This is the last structural possibility to defuse the two main areas of the accident,” says Volker Spahn from the Bavarian Central Office for Traffic Safety of the Road Administration. Any measures taken previously would have turned out to be blunt swords. The number of bikers who perceived signs with no overtaking, speed limit or warning of the risk of accidents as decoration on the side of the road was too large.

Thick-film markings made from two-component cold plastic

On the other hand, the seizures of motorcycles whose drivers were caught at 40 km / h over the speed limit, as well as driving bans on Sundays and public holidays, had a more impressive effect. But the Bavarian Administrative Court gave these measures the red card years ago because of their disproportionate nature. “The good experiences that were made with rumble strips in the district of Erzgebirge encouraged us to make this last attempt to make the routes safer,” says Spahn.


Debate about rumble strips


Schumann

Well meant, but ineffective: Even drastic warnings like these on the approach to Sudelfeld are of no use. Now rumble strips are supposed to make the risk route in the Miesbach district safer.

That is why Bayern took advice and know-how from Saxony. The vibrating strips in the form of thick-film markings made of two-component cold plastic and the tools required for this are, in the best sense of the word, an in-house construction of the Erzgebirgskreis. “The district now has utility model protection for the process and the special signage of the routes equipped in this way,” says Sascha Rudolf from the Saxon LISt, a company for transport and engineering services that acted as a technical consultant during the development. Almost two years ago, a second pilot project was implemented on the S 165 at Hohnstein, a former racing track in Saxon Switzerland. “Two more projects are planned,” says LISt engineer Rudolf. The Saxon State Office for Road Construction and Transport is now also in favor of the use of the rumble strips “made in the Erzgebirgskreis”.

There was actually pioneering work there. The somewhat outdated “Leaflet for improving road safety on motorcycle routes” by the Research Association for Roads and Transport (FGSV) indicates that “rumble strips can be considered in special cases to enforce roadworthy speeds”. How these should be designed, however, is rather vague: only install on straight lines in front of curves, not higher than one and a half centimeters and not wider than 50 centimeters, according to the FGSV leaflet. The study by the Federal Highway Research Institute (Bast) on the “development of special road surfaces to influence the speed selection” from 2010 comes to the conclusion: rumble strips running across the road can be recommended as an effective and inexpensive means of increasing traffic safety. Bast favors marking material made of two-component cold plastic, as is now used in Bavaria and Saxony.

Rumble strips increase the noise level significantly

In North Rhine-Westphalia vibrating strips have been installed as speed brakes in two versions for about ten years: both one-centimeter-deep milled lane and asphalt-colored cold plastic layers are in use, which, however, makes it difficult to detect in wet and dark conditions. There are now nine routes, two more are to be added soon on the L 687 in the southern Sauerland and on the L 707 in the Markisches Kreis. “Vibrating strips are only used when other measures such as speed limits or intensive police checks do not work,” says Heinrich Bergerbusch from the North Rhine-Westphalia State Office for Road Construction. But he also makes it unmistakably clear: “They are not designed to prevent driving too fast.” Rather, they are intended to reduce road comfort before dangerous bends. Examples of this are the B 514 in the East Westphalian Kalletal, the L 755 near Altenbeken near Paderborn and the L 439 south of Essen’s Baldeneysee. Before-and-after evaluations showed that in individual cases they are a suitable means of preventing route closures for motorcycles, according to Bergerbusch.


Debate about rumble strips


Schumann

Christian Pirthauer and Frank Thyes from Munich say: “You don’t feel anything when you drive over it.”

This calculation does not always work, as the accident hotspot Schalk on the B 236 between Iserlohn and Schwerte shows: The main access aisle from the Ruhr area into the Sauerland is now closed to motorcyclists on weekends because they cannot even be slowed down by the rumble strips.

And also on the L 310 in Altenberg in the Bergisches Land, the roll was reversed in the summer of 2013. There the rumble strips were removed again, although the accidents had decreased significantly. The reason: cars and trucks that drive over them increase the noise level significantly and annoy the residents. Now they are thinking about a driving ban for motorcycles. The noise pollution also arouses feelings in Bad Essen in the district of Osnabruck and divides the citizens into supporters or opponents of the measure in the winding town entrance. Since the installation of rumble strips, Bergstrasse L 84 no longer poses a safety risk for motorcyclists. Instead, it rattles a lot when trucks, trailers or tractors run over the speed brakes. MOTORRAD reader Burkhard Moller from Osnabruck welcomes the washboard field in Bad Essen anyway: “I prefer this kind of compulsion to drive slower than kilometer-long, senselessly low speed limits,” he writes in his letter to the editor.

Open questions nationwide


Debate about rumble strips


Schumann

Precision work: the wide neon yellow and the narrow white stripes must be drawn by hand.

There are also marking strips on the Hessian L 3004 between Oberursel and the junction to Feldberg. Here, on the Kanonenstrasse in the Hochtaunus, red rumble strips are supposed to force the bikers to slow down. Experts now agree that these construction measures can have a positive effect on accidents. And this for relatively little money: According to specialist Bergerbusch from North Rhine-Westphalia, a rumble strip element costs around 3200 euros with all the trimmings. But how do they have to look, how high or deep should they be and what color do they wear? These questions are still open nationwide.

That could change soon, as the North Rhine-Westphalian expert says: “The FGSV leaflet is currently being thoroughly revised and updated.” He assumes that all the experience that has been gained nationwide with rumble strips will be incorporated there. “There is a wide range of individual results on both motorways and country roads,” says Bergerbusch. The road builder hopes that a new edition of the leaflet “Improving road safety on motorcycle routes” will be available at the beginning of the next season with this information added.


Debate about rumble strips


BILLION

Signs on the K 9107 with rumble strips in Neidhardtsthal.

The Accident Commission of the Erzgebirgskreis has been recognized by the accident research of the insurers for the construction measures it initiated.

The hairpin bend on Kreisstrabe 9107 in the Ore Mountains has been a hotspot for accidents since 2007. Within three years (2006 to 2009), a dozen serious motorcycle accidents occurred there, in which a total of 19 bikers were mostly seriously injured. The local accident commission quickly realized that the maximum possible speed had to be limited at this point, although traffic signs alone did not promise any improvement. As a result, crash barrier reflectors were installed in the curve area and the road surface was milled off in sectors in the access area and the speed was reduced with the appropriate signs.

With success: after the construction work, there was not a single accident in which motorcyclists were injured. When the road surface had to be renewed in 2011, a search was made for similar measures without damaging the road surface. The on-site experts then used profiled and reflective thick-film cross-markings for the first time in Saxony and were awarded the “Accident Commission” prize of the same name. It goes back to an initiative of accident research by insurers and has been awarded annually since 2002 in cooperation with the German Road Safety Council for accident commissions and successful mitigation of risky routes.


Debate about rumble strips


Sdun

Editor Michael Schumann drove the routes – with and without rumble strips-

There’s no point in ridiculing rumble marks as useless. Rather, we should hope that they will work. Because if not, the driving fun on two of the most beautiful routes on the edge of the Alps may soon be over.

There was great excitement when the first reports came in in autumn 2013 that they wanted to slow down “speeders” on popular motorcycle routes in southern Germany by making new structural changes to the road surface, so-called rumble strips. There was a lot going on in the internet forums, but also in emails to MOTORRAD: “Dangerous! … soon you won’t even be able to drive there at the permitted 60 km / h … I don’t want to go into that
to come across a critical situation in an inclined position … “The fear of the unknown was widespread. What kind of “speed breaker” would the authorities be pegging into the asphalt? Now the time has come, the thresholds are there on the Sudelfeld and Kesselberg routes. and?

Nothing and, one would like to say, as soon as one has driven over the strip for the first time. Every rail track in the asphalt, and there are thousands of them in major German cities, shakes more and is more dangerous. Mainly because every now and then they lead through corners and are extremely slippery when wet. None of this applies to the rumble strips. They only cross the lane in front of and behind bends in places where even (much too) fast drivers no longer have a lean angle, signs warn of them, they can be recognized from a distance thanks to their safety vests even in the dark. In short: the rumble strips can actually jolt neither the driver nor the chassis.

But maybe they still have a startling effect. As a psychological brake, through their color and the dramatic warning signs. Which – and I find this extremely incomprehensible – do not address motorists at all, see picture. Obviously, when it rattles, the consequences for two-wheelers are much more serious. But the rules of the game are the same for everyone, aren’t they? It is also clear that we motorcyclists have to stick to it. All. Only then is there a chance that the authorities will not find a reason to completely block the routes for bikers. I have nothing against the rumble strips as they are. I very much hope that you will help avoid further accidents (and thus the lockdown).

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