The design specifications of guard fences in Japan were reexamined and the revised specifications were implemented from April 1999. Because of the huge consumption in time and cost to test the performances of full-scale guard fences in the field, some assumptions are adopted while modifying the design specifications, and numerical analyses are necessary to confirm the impact performance and safety level of new types of steel highway guard fences. In this study, the finite element models are developed for the heavy trucks and steel highway guard fences to reenact their behaviors, and the solution approach is carried out using nonlinear dynamic analysis software of structures in three dimensions (LS-DYNA). The numerical simulation results are compared with the full-scale on-site testing results to verify the proposed analysis procedure. The collision process is simulated and it is also made possible to visualize the movement of the truck and the performances of guard fences. In addition, the energy shift of the truck kinetic energy to the truck and guard fence Internal energy, and the energy absorption of each guard fence component are studied for the development of a new design methodology of steel highway guard fences based on the energy absorption capacity.