[ noun ] a railing placed alongside a stairway or road for safety <noun.artifact>
guardrail \guard"rail`\ n. a railing placed alongside a stairway or road for safety.
Syn: safety rail. [WordNet 1.5]
Instead of careening out of control into oncoming traffic, an automobile would just slide along the guardrail until the driver got his act together again.
It blew a crater in the road, near an autobahn exit in Bonn, and twisted an iron guardrail.
Mr. Immitt, 28 years old, was on his way home to New York City from a chess match in Philadelphia when the rear axle on his van snapped and the vehicle careened into a guardrail.
The driver then lost control, and the van veered across the median strip, slamming into a guardrail and overturning on the northbound lanes about three miles from White Marsh, police said.