Skip to main content

More flexible workzone protection

Impact protection vehicles, often the only form of protection between workers and traffic in many road maintenance and repair operations, are designed to arrest an errant car or truck. Truck-mounted attenuators have been used for many years, but as Brent Kulp of Traffix Devices points out, advances in trailer attenuators, such as on his company's Scorpion, provide the same protection, at lower cost but with much greater flexibility. He points to the Scorpion's unique curved design, which not only redirects
January 31, 2012 Read time: 1 min
Impact protection vehicles, often the only form of protection between workers and traffic in many road maintenance and repair operations, are designed to arrest an errant car or truck. Truck-mounted attenuators have been used for many years, but as Brent Kulp of 1918 Traffix Devices points out, advances in trailer attenuators, such as on his company's Scorpion, provide the same protection, at lower cost but with much greater flexibility. He points to the Scorpion's unique curved design, which not only redirects side impacts away from exposed corners of the truck but enables the device to crush in stages upon impact, thereby reducing repair costs.

 "Trailers have been gaining in popularity over the last few years due in part to their portability and not having to have a dedicated crash truck in an agency's vehicle fleet," Kulp says.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Smarter mapping makes for more informed decisions
    December 2, 2016
    Following his keynote presentation at the 2016 ITS World Congress in Melbourne, ITS International caught up with Esri founder Jack Dangermond. It is getting close to half a century ago that Jack Dangermond and his wife Laura founded the Environmental Research Systems Institute – known today as Esri - of which he remains president.
  • Public Private Partnerships to gather pace in the US
    April 29, 2015
    Public Private Partnerships are set to play a big role in transportation funding as Andrew Bardin Williams discovers. The old joke goes that the road from New York to Chicago is paved with potholes. For decades, drivers from New York and New Jersey traveling across Pennsylvania to visit the Midwest have lambasted the Commonwealth’s roadways for their lack of smooth pavement.
  • Tesla car crash in California kills driver while running on autopilot
    April 3, 2018
    A Tesla vehicle driving in autopilot mode crashed into a roadside barrier and caught fire in a test carried out in California – according to a report by the BBC.
  • Economic stimulus packages - shift in emphasis on exit strategies
    July 19, 2012
    Jack Short of the International Transport Forum discusses the role of stimulus finding and the path in and out of recession. The US Government has grabbed many headlines with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), its response to the need to do something to prevent stagnation in the face of the recent economic downturn.