SAFER barrier

The Steel And Foam Energy Reduction Barrier (SAFER Barrier), sometimes generically referred to as a soft wall, is a technology found on oval automobile race tracks and high-speed sections of road and street tracks, intended to absorb and reduce kinetic energy during the impact of a high-speed crash, and thus, lessen injuries sustained to drivers and spectators.

The SAFER barrier consists of structural steel tubes welded together in a flush mounting, strapped in place to the existing concrete retaining wall.

Dean Sicking received the National Science and Technology Medal from President George W. Bush, in part due to his work on the SAFER Barrier and on other roadside safety devices.

[1][2] Throughout the decades of organized professional automobile racing, track owners and sanctioning bodies were constantly developing and attempting to utilize various devices to protect drivers and spectators in the event of a crash.

Tire barriers, water and sand barrels, Styrofoam blocks, gravel traps, guardrails, earth embankments, and other various low-cost devices were implemented, with a varying level of success and usefulness.

Early years saw metal guardrails on the outside perimeters at some oval tracks, but their limitations, maintenance needs, and sometimes troublesome results saw them completely phased out by the late 1980s.

The concrete walls generally showed favorable protection for spectators, and even against large NASCAR stock cars, routinely held up nearly unscathed during crashes.

In the later years of the 20th century, sharply increasing speeds and several high-profile fatal accidents accelerated the need and public outcry for safety improvements at the track level.

The Polyethylene Energy Dissipating System (or PEDS Barrier) was developed by the Indy Racing League and retired GM engineer John Pierce at Wayne State University.

The device consisted of PE cylinders mounted upright along the concrete wall, covered with plates of the same material, overlapping each other in the direction of travel.

The violent impact ripped many of the PEDS Barrier components from the wall, threw them high into the air, and littered the track with huge amounts of heavy debris.

A slightly updated version (PEDS-2) was installed for a trial basis for the 1999 Indianapolis 500, but after driver Hideshi Matsuda impacted it, another major flaw (the tendency to "catch and pivot") was exposed.