Street bollards are a common component of any urban landscape. Made of steel or aluminium, these highly secure pillars can be found within car parks, store entries, pavement areas and more. Despite the important role they plan in outdoor safety, people walk past street bollards frequently without considering their actual purpose. What exactly is a bollard? Why are they so important? If you’ve landed on this blog, it’s likely you’re interested in the answers to these questions. Barriers Direct has the answers. In no particular order, here are the 5 key benefits of street bollards.
What is a bollard?
For those out there asking: ‘What is a bollard?’ – street bollards are short and sturdy, vertical posts used to control road traffic, prevent ram-raiding attacks and regulate entrances and exist to exclusive areas.
What are the different types of bollards?
There are many different types of street bollards that come in a variety of shapes, styles, and materials. The different types of bollards depend on the use of the bollard itself. These types include:
- Pedestrian bollards (used to contain a playground or park and allow easy access).
- Ram-raid bollards (used to protect stores from burglaries from incidents of ram-raiding).
- Cast iron bollards (commonly used as standalone applications).
- Concrete bollards (typically large, these bollards are installed to be impact protective).
- Plastic bollards (these bollards are typically found on construction sites).
What are the different materials bollards are made from?
Street bollards come in many different materials. Here are just some of them:
- Plastic
- Stainless steel
- Aluminium
- Wood
- Concrete
- Bicycle parking
There are many types of street bollards that exist in many different places. So, why are street bollards so important? For multiple reasons.
1. They ensure driver safety
Street bollards are an extremely important component of driver safety. Why? Because they help alert divers to multiple types of danger hazards on the road. These hazards include narrow roads, high curbs, and the potential for high-impact collisions. Street bollards often act as a barrier preventing vehicles from entering pedestrian-only zones and vice versa. This minimises the risk of injury to drivers by ensuring that they do not enter areas unequipped for large vehicles and likely to result in dangerous accident.
2. They ensure privacy for private landowners
Street bollards ensure that members of the public know that a specific area of land is a privately owned commercial or residential property. This protects the privacy of landowners and prevents trespassing into exclusive areas.
3. They ensure pedestrian safety
Street bollards not only ensure driver safety, but also ensure pedestrian safety. Busy street corners, blind spots, unpredictable traffic stops, and narrow pavements all risk the safety of city inhabitants. The bustling city landscape can be a dangerous space for many categories of people, including young children, elderly people, and those with disabilities. Although it often goes unnoticed, the purpose of the street bollard is to provide a safe pedestrian passage in a city for these groups. Often used along with other forms of barriers to ensure safety for pedestrians, street bollards mark out safe paths for members of the public, pedestrian streets and bike lanes in areas with high volumes of traffic, and also highlight which areas within a city are best to walk in late at night. Without street bollards in cities, people are at a higher risk of multiple danger hazards.
4. They ensure storefront security
Street bollards prevent burglars from ram-raiding large stores and damaging storefronts. In building a secure space between drivers who hope to trespass and a storefront, drivers cannot purposely ram their vehicle into a building in order to burglarise it. Bollards also prevent drivers from accidentally driving directly into a storefront and causing significant damage.
5. Street bollards can be aesthetic
Not all street bollards are colourless, steel barriers. Many are built for aesthetic purposes in order to complement the architectural style of a building. Store owners and private landowners use these steel bollards to stand out from a design perspective and add fixtures to buildings.
There are many benefits to street bollards from both a safety and design perspective. Shop our selection here.
