Managers and members of road crews — people used to working outdoors — sit in an office, talking about the close calls they’ve had on the road.
Michael Veid, with Fay, S&B USA Construction, said that when on a road construction site, “you’re literally 12 feet away from a 75 mile-an-hour missile.”
Harry Kline, a paving manager for P. Flanigan & Sons, a Baltimore contractor, said he’d experienced days where left the job “shaken up” at the end of the day, because of “out of control” traffic.
The video, from the Associated General Contractors of America, was released along with a new survey that shows 55% of road crew workers reported vehicles had crashed into their work zones during the past year. In Maryland, of the 24 respondents to the survey, 46% said vehicles collided into their work sites at least three times.
The survey also showed 67% of respondents in Maryland said they felt the risks of collisions are greater now, and they cited phones and speeding as leading factors.
There are efforts to improve work zone safety.
Next week, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s panel on work zone safety will meet for the first time. It’s chaired by Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller, who joined officials in Graysonville, near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, on Wednesday to urge drivers to obey speed limits and eliminate distractions by putting their cellphones down.
The efforts to improve work zone safety come after a deadly crash in March, where six highway crew members were killed on Interstate 695 in Baltimore County. The National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation is continuing, although the preliminary findings indicated the car that struck and killed the workers had entered a gap in the construction barriers intended for use by construction vehicles.
During a Zoom call on the AGC/HCSS survey Thursday, Tom Robins, founder of WorkZoneSafe.com, explained he’d come up with an online course for teen drivers in Oklahoma, who said they avoided areas where road construction was ongoing because they felt nervous about how to navigate the work zones.
“They white-knuckle it through there,” he said.
Robins said he’d pushed for — and Oklahoma is now requiring — work zone education training for new drivers, “to teach teens to be safe, confident drivers” as they approach work zones.
Robins said the requirement will kick in Nov. 1.
As an incentive for teens across the country, Robins has made the course available online, and has added a chance for participants to win a $500 scholarship.
Robins said he’s hoping that other states will follow suit in including the work zone education in order to get a license.
Kline is among the people working in construction zones every day. Speaking in the video released Thursday, Kline urged drivers to remember, “I want to go home tonight, just like you want to get to where you’re going right now.”
