PALMA
THE Council of Majorca is to install metal security barriers on the centre of the Inca motorway immediately, however, for the moment, the work will be done in sections for budgetary reasons.
The first barrier, three metres long, will be installed where the motorway passes Santa Maria, just where the first fatal accident this Summer took place, when a car crossed the central reservation.
The Council decided to take these measures after a second fatal accident happened on Monday for the same reason, leaving two people dead.
On the 35 kilometres of motorway from Palma to Sa Pobla, there are three different types of central reservation.
From Palma to Alcampo, due to the construction of a third lane by the last Balearic Government, the barrier is concrete.
From here to the Inca exit, the longest part, there is no barrier on the central reservation, which contributes to the dramatic accidents seen when cars cross the central reservation and end up in the opposite lane.
On the last part, from Inca to Sa Pobla, there are guard rails installed, but only on bends and at intersections to lessen the impact.
Gonzalo Aguiar, director of the Council of Majorca's Roads Department, admitted that concrete barriers are more effective than metal ones, but on the stretch between Alcampo and Inca, which currently has no barriers, concrete ones would present a drainage problem in the case of heavy rain. In addition to this, it is planned in the future to widen the motorway to three lanes and for this they will use the ground from the central reservation, as they did when the stretch from Palma to Alcampo was widened.
The type of concrete barrier which is on this first stretch of the Inca motorway can also be seen on the Manacor and Valldemossa roads, and the airport motorway, amongst others.
These barriers without doubt prevent accidents like those which have occurred on the Inca motorway.
At the moment metal security barriers will be put in place on the central reservation of the Inca motorway on one stretch, which will be extended to the rest of the road if the experts think it necessary. We are going to concentrate on this motorway to try to reduce the accident rate, insisted Aguiar. To put security barriers along the whole of the motorway would cost two million euros, a part of which must be left for the 2008 budget.
Aguiar went on to say that during the last few weeks several kilometres of this road had been resurfaced with anti slip material to prevent skidding.
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