All across the nation, highway constructors are pulling for motorists to take it easy in their work zones – and coming up with ways to make it happen
BY AMY DREW THOMPSON
He didn’t have to help me, this guy. No one else did. But as he was coming out of the Wawa, a local convenience store, he saw me struggling with the air hose in the corner of the parking lot, and he stopped.
It was early. Painfully so. The sun hadn’t even come up yet. But folks were already on their way to work. I was, too, but also headed home to my kids after a few days out of town. And before getting on the highway for a 100-mile trip, I needed to get rid of the low-pressure warning light that was haunting my dashboard.
Amen for good Samaritans.
And this one, as he filled my tires, told me he worked highway construction. In fact, he’d just gotten off a night shift. Minutes later, he was screwing the valve caps back on and sauntering back toward his car.
“Can’t I buy you a cup of coffee to say thanks?!” I yelled over the whoosh of traffic. It was a busy gas station on a busy road.
“Just slow down in the work zone!” he hollered back, smiling.
I knew the job was dangerous back then. I’d been writing for Constructor for nearly a decade, but I was also a member of the traveling public. There’s a reason the signs warn motorists that fines are doubled when workers are present. But since COVID, Craig Madole told me, things have gotten even worse.
Madole is the CEO of the Nevada AGC. “There’s been a change in driving behavior,” he said. “More aggressive driving, distracted driving, speeding. It seems like more than once a week, we have a driver getting behind traffic control and into an active jobsite, and either hitting a person or a truck or an arrow board.”
It was bad enough that they passed a new law, allowing for unmanned highway patrol vehicles, with lights on, to be placed on jobsites. The hope was that it would change driver behavior, but improvements have only been minor.
In the southeast, Jacob Garmon said, things aren’t much different.
“I don’t know what it is,” said the director of safety for the Carolinas AGC, “but drivers have gotten worse and worse since COVID….”
Back in 2023, when 33-year-old C.J. Bryant, a father of four, was struck and killed in an active work zone, Garmon said it relit the safety fire for their committee, which meets quarterly.
“It started a discussion around the room and the number of stories of accidents and near-misses, almost daily, it seemed, was crazy.”
It’s been a years-long odyssey in Vermont, said Matt Musgrave, deputy executive vice president of AGC of Vermont.
He was new in the post in 2019 when his supervisor left town for out-of-state training and, alone in the office for the first time, he fielded a call from a distraught member.
“One of her people, a traffic flagger, had been killed,” he recounted.
James Alger’s infant daughter would never know her dad, and at that time, police officers stationed at work zones were prohibited from doing anything outside setting up signage/cones, directing traffic or passive, blue-light presence.
“They weren’t allowed to pull anyone over, no matter the offense. This was identified as a major problem,” said Musgrave. “We have a real issue of speeding in the work zones and a driving public that doesn’t see the zone as anything more than a challenge to them getting to work on time.”
Results of the 2024 AGC and HCSS Highway Work Zone Safety Survey are in, and members are reporting much along the same lines. Thirty-three percent of respondents reported five or more accidents in the past year. Phones (88%) and speeding (80%) were reported as reasons why highway work zone construction is more dangerous today than it was last year. And 64% say current penalties for violations in work zones are insufficient deterrents.
To view the national results of the AGC and HCSS survey, please visit https://bit.ly/2024HwyWorkZoneSurvey. For a rundown of top stats, see our infographic on pages 30-31.
The traveling public, said Madole, doesn’t seem inclined to care.
“They just want to get where they’re going, and they’re frustrated by having to slow down.”
Which is why all three of these chapters have been upping the ante when it comes to highway work zone safety.
Tech Gets Tough
In Vermont, what began with loss coalesced into action.
“We got about 50 flaggers from around the state on a bus and went to the State House in 2020,” said Musgrave. “They did a press conference which was widely attended. Flaggers testified before the transportation committee.”
It brought light to the challenge members were dealing with, he said. They wanted to help – studies ensued; supervision requirements were increased – but it wasn’t enough.
“Nothing was being asked of the public,” said Musgrave. Until now.
After years-long efforts, S. 184, an act relating to the temporary use of automated traffic law enforcement, was delivered to the governor on May 24.
Using technology that was already in play in several other states, drivers in Vermont work zones will now be monitored for speed in a three-year program that will, if as effective as it’s been elsewhere, slow folks down.
“The technology detects the speeds of cars going through the work zone,” Musgrave explained. “If they’re going more than 10 miles over the speed limit, the equipment reads the plate number and law enforcement can download that list.”
First offenders will get a warning letter, second timers: an $80 fine and on Strike Three, that fee doubles to $160.
“We’re hoping this will be a tool and a deterrent.”
“Respect the Cone”
In Nevada, they’ll be tugging at drivers’ heartstrings instead of purse strings with a new campaign urging folks to slow down and be more attentive, one that will be delivered by the workers and their families.
“…too many of us aren’t making it home to our family,” says one, flanked by its members.
“…to our boys,” says a dad in a safety vest, gazing at his sons.
“…to our friends,” says another.
“…to our pets,” says one more, scratching the fur of a golden retriever.
“Help bring my mom and dad home,” says a freckle-faced girl.
It is moving.
“It’s a coalition of people who are affected by these incidents,” said Alexis Motarex, director of government affairs for the Nevada AGC chapter.
In addition to the 30-second spots, which will run everywhere from local movie screens during previews to the social media accounts of local owners and unions – and doubtless be shared by workers and their families as well – billboards on northern Nevada’s two main highways will keep the slogan fresh in mind as motorists travel.
To view the billboards and video spots Nevada AGC has created, please visit https://www.respecttheconenv.com/media.
It can’t come soon enough, said Madole.
“Ten years ago, contractors used to tell employees to park trucks inside the work zone so they wouldn’t get hit by traffic,” he explained. “Now, very intentionally, they have them park near the cones.”
This way, the trucks offer protection to those working inside.
“Just last week, a 19-year-old kid took out an arrow board at a jobsite while texting,” he said. “Luckily, no one was hurt. But they’re out shopping for two new pickups this week.”
Driver’s Ed
In the Carolinas, where Bryant’s death weighed heavily on AGC members, a program seeing success in Oklahoma drew interest.
There, young Sooner state motorists had a new curriculum added to their driver’s education, one centered on being safe in highway work zones.
“It’s an hour of online training that’s required before they are able to get their license,” Garmon explained. The AGC began pursuing similar legislation in both North and South Carolina and plans are coming together.
“We’ll have a video platform featuring interviews with local AGC members who work in highway construction, someone who was in an accident in a work zone, a highway patrol officer, and even the South Carolina DOT Secretary,” he said.
It’s had a positive change on young drivers, he noted, adding that if successful, this could be a course required for anyone who gets a first-offense ticket for violations within a work zone.
“This is something we’ve been battling with,” he said, noting a recent member death at the hands of a drunk driver. “The penalties are already very tough for that, and it still happens, so how do you get the message across?”
The main thing, he relayed, is public awareness. Drivers need to slow down.
“These people are just trying to get the work done.”
There’s irony, noted Musgrave, that the same folks looking to see the roads improve are often the ones most aggrieved. Their chapter has had reports on everything from drivers stepping out of vehicles to accost flaggers to others drawing firearms.
“They don’t see the project that will eventually make travel easier. They only see the flagger, the obstruction, when they’re already late for work.”
Connecticut passed similar legislation some time ago, he said, and the results have been impressive. They’ve seen average work zone speeds drop from 75 miles per hour to 55.
“They sent out something like 28,000 warning letters, but only 3,000-4,000 actual tickets, which means that not only did people see the signage on the whole and begin slowing down, most of the ones who got the warnings slowed down afterward.
It’s a win, he said.
“If we can do that here, we’ll have a win, too.”