Crash barrier (Armco) garden fence?

[Liquid Knight]

Okay "tis the season" and all that.

In the last ten years I have had seven drunk/speeding drivers either crash into my front garden or very nearly.

As annoying as this is and from a personal point of view all drink and drugged drivers are the scum of the Earth and should be chemically castrated before they take a dump in the gene pool.

I think the idea of a lifetime ban for a second conviction is a brilliant idea.

The first drunk driver took out my hedge and dumped oil and diesel in my garden so I had to replace it with a fence. That fence lasted two years and I now have concrete posts and wire with Buddleia. One of these posts was bent last year by a hit and run driver who got thirty yards up the road to their driveway. The Police followed the trail of coolant.

Since the A17 from Sutton Bridge to King's Lynn has had average speed cameras the number of collisions in my village has gone up from a couple a year to sixteen since the cameras were installed (in April).

So I'm expecting an uninvited guess at some point.

Can I have an Armco style crash barrier as a garden fence or a supplement to my existing fence?

Are there any legal ramifications to using it?

I would need planning permission for a wall (and let's be honest unless it's reinforced it would be as pointless and a fence and when a car hits it a cluster bomb of flying bricks towards my home) would I need to with a crash barrier?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Reclaimed-Armco-Motorway...

I'll either weld it to the posts or weld the bolts to stop it being nicked by metal thieves.

[Byker28i]

Be interesting. Anything stopping you putting it inside your property?

I can understand your concern.
We've a house locally thats recently just finished being rebuilt, which was hit by a van taking out the whole corner of the house. It had to be demolished as it was that unsafe. Total rebuild from new, but it's taken 18 months.

They've build a brick wall on the corner, reinforced.

[KarlMac]

Have you considered a gabion wall? Might be a bit more attractive?

[Ransoman]

What about a solid and un-yeilding brick wall?

[Garybee]

KarlMac said:

Have you considered a gabion wall? Might be a bit more attractive?

I like this suggestion. Much less aggro for you when it gets hit and more damage to the car.

[768]

Liquid Knight said:

Since the A17 from Sutton Bridge to King's Lynn has had average speed cameras the number of collisions in my village has gone up from a couple a year to sixteen since the cameras were installed (in April).

Try and get them to remove the cameras? The gabion wall does sound more attractive, might be a messy clear up operation though.

[Osinjak]

HESCO bastion.



Best of all, you get to play forts.

[Liquid Knight]

KarlMac said:

Have you considered a gabion wall? Might be a bit more attractive?

Aesthetically speaking I think a crash barrier would be a more obvious deterrent.

One of my neighbors has railway sleepers and a six foot wide raised flower bed (basically a sleeper edged six by four foot earth wall) a van hit it and flipped over into the garden on its roof. I imagine a four foot Gabion wall would have a similar effect. We're only allowed four foot along the front.

[marcusgrant]

Garybee said:

I like this suggestion. Much less aggro for you when it gets hit and more damage to the car.

x3

crash barriers are built to bend and deflect cars, depending on how you install it, it's unlikely it'll do what you want it to

[Biker 1]

Gabions are attractive, relatively cheap, & easy to place/build. You could go the whole hog & hide some concrete filled diesel drums in the middle of the gabion basket, so as to stop heavier vehicles also.
These look quite reasonable: https://www.gabionbaskets.co.uk/gabion/gabion-desi...

[spookly]

Liquid Knight said:

I think the idea of a lifetime ban for a second conviction is a brilliant idea.

It really isn't as it just encourages driving without a license.
Most people will abide by a reasonable ban. I'm not convinced that many would pay any attention to a lifetime ban.

Liquid Knight said:

Can I have an Armco style crash barrier as a garden fence or a supplement to my existing fence?

Are there any legal ramifications to using it?

I would need planning permission for a wall (and let's be honest unless it's reinforced it would be as pointless and a fence and when a car hits it a cluster bomb of flying bricks towards my home) would I need to with a crash barrier?

Have you considered buying some mature trees.... cars won't get through a tree. And they look better than Armco

[Liquid Knight]

spookly said:

Liquid Knight said:

I think the idea of a lifetime ban for a second conviction is a brilliant idea.

It really isn't as it just encourages driving without a license.
Most people will abide by a reasonable ban. I'm not convinced that many would pay any attention to a lifetime ban.

Six months in prison for driving whilst disqualified. At least in an ideal world that is.

There is always the hardship mitigation. "I could loose my job if I'm banned"

Boo hoo! Maybe you should have thought of that before drink/drug driving.

I've only had trouble from one insurance company but many will only give third party coverage if their policy holder is over the limit.

[Willy Nilly]

Please make sure you report your crash issues with the cretins that installed the average speed cameras.

You could buy tonne bags of sand, have them delivered and plant something like Ivy in them to make them look a little less council, or just put them behind a standard fence panel. They'd absorb quite a bit of impact.

[Rude-boy]

To be honest i am liking the railway sleepers your mate has.

Failing that old telegraph poles piled 4' into the ground with 4' above ground should stop them better than armco which will just cause you grief and make you look like the sort of person that queues outside the gate for a clubbie at Pembray

[SVTRick]

Buy some old railway line.
Cut into posts and fix deep in the ground at 1200 centres
Twin or triple rails then welded onto uprights
Allow nice bushey hedge to grow all over
Job done

[Gavia]

Liquid Knight said:

Six months in prison for driving whilst disqualified. At least in an ideal world that is.

There is always the hardship mitigation. "I could loose my job if I'm banned"

Boo hoo! Maybe you should have thought of that before drink/drug driving.

I've only had trouble from one insurance company but many will only give third party coverage if their policy holder is over the limit.

You can't say that! There's a thread running where others have said that to someone caught doing 62 in a 30 and they're being roundly criticised by many others.

I had the whole side of my garden taken out a few years by a drunk driver who hit the kerb so hard she ripped the nearside wheel off her car. If I were you I'd be looking at something more aesthetically pleasing than Armco. Those baskets look great IMO, trees even better.

[Tango13]

SVTRick said:

Buy some old railway line.
Cut into posts and fix deep in the ground at 1200 centres
Twin or triple rails then welded onto uprights
Allow nice bushey hedge to grow all over
Job done

I know someone that slid a Maestro into a fencepost made from a piece of railway line. Barely a mark on the fencepost but the car was a write off, I would say total loss but being being a Maestro it was a total loss before the impact...

[Aretnap]

Liquid Knight said:

There is always the hardship mitigation. "I could loose my job if I'm banned"

Boo hoo! Maybe you should have thought of that before drink/drug driving.

Doesn't work - not for drink driving at least. Where an offence involves mandatory disqualification, like drink driving, hardship cannot be a reason not to impose the ban. It only works for offences like speeding, where disqualification is at the discretion of the court, and for totting-up. It's an urban myth that people get caught driving drunk, then get to keep their licence because their job depends on it.

It IS possible to avoid a ban for drink driving in rare circumstances, but the reasons have to relate to the offence itself rather to the offender - eg you drove because of a genuine emergency, or your drinks were spiked (and you can prove it).

[dirkgently]

Ransoman said:

What about a solid and un-yeilding brick wall?

Like the one around Charborough House? The estate office must have the brickiy on speed dial.

[blearyeyedboy]

Liquid Knight said:

Aesthetically speaking I think a crash barrier would be a more obvious deterrent.

I appreciate your willingness to deter people, LK, but by the time a drink-driver has got tanked up and is driving towards your house, any visual deterrent isn't going to change the outcome, is it?