This is pretty apples-to-oranges. You see things like this in a lot of less dense U.S. areas as well. But in the crash example, it's right in the middle of an interchange, with the lane needing to form and rise quickly. Additionally, the gently rising metal barriers aren't safe in many situations because of their ability to launch cars. That's why they've been replaced by crash attenuators and sand/water barrels. Unfortunately the crash attenuator wasn't replaced after a recent (<1 week ago) accident, ensuring the next accident was fatal.
First, your counter-example is, ironically, pretty apples-to-oranges, as it is literally in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the municipality where my interchange is located has a population density 1.5x that of Mountain View.
About the A20: it was built around 1970, inspired by American designs. Something like this would probably not be built today. Meanwhile, the specific ramp where the accident occurred, was constructed around 2006.
I do agree that safety measures should be adjusted according to their location, there is indeed no one-size-fits-all solution here.
You're right that my first example is in the middle of nowhere, but there's a good reason for that. American and Dutch city designs differ so much to make them incomparable. Even NYC has 0.63 vehicles per household (http://www.governing.com/gov-data/car-ownership-numbers-of-v...), and San Jose (the closest to Mountain View I could find) has 2.12. There's a lot more traffic to deal with, and a lot more sprawl, meaning less space for interchanges and long ramps.
Here's an accurate U.S. analogue to your example: https://www.google.com/maps/@41.0286482,-102.1517159,3a,75y,...
Meanwhile, here's a Dutch example: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9305956,4.4371182,3a,75y,66....
Turns out sometimes you need crash attenuators because space isn't infinite. Also, there's no grass in sight here.
Here's another example: https://www.google.com/maps/@51.9239112,4.4203482,3a,67.8y,2...
No sloping barriers, because they're not always safer.