The Kansas Turnpike Authority estimates that about 10 lives are saved and countless serious injuries are avoided each year by the concrete barrier walls it constructed in the early 1990s in the median of the 236-mile toll road.

This week, officials of the Missouri Department of Transportation estimated that cable barriers in the median of multi-lane highways in that state save 40 to 50 lives a year. Cable barriers were installed along Interstate 70 in Missouri in 2006; traffic deaths from crossover accidents have fallen from 24 in 2002 to just one in 2009.

After three fatal crossover accidents on Kansas Highway 10 in the last nine months, it’s time to take another look at barriers that stop vehicles that are headed across the median into oncoming traffic.

In response to a plea from Eudora Mayor Scott Hopson, Gov. Sam Brownback has ordered the Kansas Department of Transportation to begin immediately designing a project to widen the shoulders and add rumble strips on K-10 in Douglas County. Those improvements already have been made along the highway in Johnson County.

That’s a first step, but Brownback also has instructed KDOT to revisit a 2008 study on the suitability of cable barriers in the K-10 median. Based on traffic and accident counts in the 2008 study, KDOT rejected cable barriers for K-10, but approved them for 1 mile of U.S. Highway 75 in Topeka and 4 miles of Kansas Highway 96 in Sedgwick County.

We don’t know much about those highways, but we have some experience with K-10. Even when no cars are crossing the median and causing head-on accidents, the speed and volume of traffic on this highway already create a hazard, especially during peak commuting hours. That hazard is multiplied by the behavior of drivers who weave in and out of traffic and succumb to a variety of driving distractions. Regular commuters on that route have many stories to tell about seeing drivers eating, applying makeup, talking on cell phones, texting and even reading the newspaper while speeding down the highway.

Cables or some other kind of barrier won’t address all the K-10 driving hazards, but they probably would have saved at least one life on that highway last weekend. Five-year-old Cainan Shutt died when a car driven by 24-year-old Ryan Pittman ran through the median and struck the minivan driven by Cainan’s step-grandfather. Cables reportedly provide a less damaging stop than concrete barriers, but it’s hard to know whether Pittman might have survived a collision with a cable barrier. However, it’s almost certain that the cables would have stopped his car before it collided with the minivan in which Cainan was riding.

Last weekend’s fatal crash has drawn much-needed attention to safety issues on K-10. Whether or not a cable barrier is the best option for this stretch of highway, the governor was right to instruct KDOT officials to revisit this issue and consider additional safety measures for this heavily traveled route between Lawrence and Kansas City.