consequences of such friction reduction u s pat no 6 685 154 and in particular its teachings of structural composites as resultant static and dynamic responses to service loads and u s pat no 6 892 502 and in particular to utilization of structural composites in bearing as load transmission structures and the present inventor 39 s 20050252165 filed feb 2 2005 and its teachings of structural composites consisting of elements exhibiting significant asymmetric engineering properties while many of the present art u201c breakaway u201d devices may be modified to address the significantly different requirements of impact attenuators generally and gating impact attenuators particularly it is economically undesirable to combine both the utility of a highway sign structure u201c breakaway u201d and the utility of a gating impact attenuator in addition to the problems associated with federal highway administration 39 s required engineering design requirement incompatibilities of achieving the same utility from a single device configuration the present invention 39 s preferred embodiment is a structural composite composed of two 2 or more elements forming a post affixed at or near ground line with the two 2 elements attached and extending upward from said ground line the first element being nearest oncoming vehicular traffic which the device is intended to decelerate the second element is not continuous and provides not tensile load capacity when the top of the device is.