On a particular stretch of Interstate 275 in Northern Kentucky, on either side of the I 75 cloverleaf, there is no shortage of memorials to those who have died in car accidents.
The carnage is all too familiar to Boone County Deputy Tom Scheben.
"Not only do you have that kind of damage to the vehicles," he says, "you also have that kind of damage to the human beings inside, and whether they're wearing their seat belts, or even nowadays with the airbags, sometimes they just don't help."
One-hundred thirty thousand vehicles a day drive the 19-mile section of asphalt.
There is nothing to stop drivers who lose control from crossing over the grassy median into oncoming traffic.
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet plans to fix that with a woven steel cable barrier.
"They are more giving, absorb a lot of the impact of the vehicle," says Nancy Wood of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. "It will try to redirect the vehicle back on and keep it back on the roadway instead of allowing it crossing over into oncoming traffic."
We are all used to the familiar concrete barriers, like those on I 75 through Northern Kentucky.
So why change?
"The cable barriers are a lot more cost effective," Wood explains. "They only cost about $130,000 to install per mile so they're more effective where as concrete is a lot more expensive and entails a lot more."
Ohio and Louisville have been using the cable barriers with good success. Head-on collisions have drastically reduced.
It will still cost the state just shy of $3 million to install the cables. That's a bargain, according to Scheben. "Anything that's going to keep that car on the proper side of the road is worth its weight in gold."
