It is rightly pointed out various intellectuals that the lifestyle of today is vastly different from that of the earlier times especially in terms of its pace. Lifestyle of today is remarkablyfast paced and so in order to catch up with such a pace of life, the adoption of smart and time saving methods is of real significance. Well, the highways have certainly contributed in this direction and have made our lives a lot easier. Thanks to the modern flyovers and expressways, a single route can be accessed by twice the number of vehicles at the same time. These facilities and supplies have made our lives double free but it needs to be realized that designing and constructing it is a very complex and a long process. You have to hold fast to the various rules of designing, government standards and most importantly, their safety and usability for the people. In the end it is a joint effort of a number of skilled engineers, scientists and statisticians. The material that is used in the construction is finalized after it undergoes certain tests for evaluating their qualities like hardness, roughness, thickness and all that is required. Some of the points you have to take care of while laying an infrastructure design are as follows: The basic layout (布局) of the road — At this level of planning, various civil engineers have meetings to figure out the basic requirements of the road like thickness of the asphalt (沥青), the size of lanes, distance to be covered, degree of curves and much more. These fundamental points help them decide the further line of action. The prior steps — Before any work is stated over the basic plan layout, there are various preparations to be made like placing road signs, the removal of trees that may prove to be dangerous in the event of a storm or other natural causes, the positioning of fire hydrants (消防栓) based on special designs to be useful when required, etc. Inclusion of safety barriers — The safety barriers are placed on almost all roads and highways that are made over or near to rivers and cliffs. These barriers keep the vehicles from moving into the traffic in instances of accidents. These should also be designed in advance of placing them on a road and the design should be such that it makes minimum impact upon the people sitting in the car. These include supplies like side rails and light poles. Asphalt pavement marking — It is the process of using a reflective material to indicate various important points on the road like lanes, turns, passing areas, two way and one way roads. Though the smooth and wide highways constructed in big cities seem to be very attractive for the drivers, the ease of use is also the cause of accidents. Cars rushing at extremely high speeds and insecure change of lanes are a common sight on the highways. With the help of novel infrastructure design engineers, we can make the best possible use of highways. If these are designed properly and sign boards are placed at the required points, a number of road accidents can be avoided.
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