The call a highway supervisor fears

My name is Troy Whitworth and I have spent the past 29 years working for KDOT in some capacity; whether it was as a front line worker, Supervisor or Manager. I spent the majority of my early career based in the Kansas City area working on multi-lane highways with high traffic counts.

Troy Whitworth

As a Supervisor and Manager, the worst news you can receive is the call saying one of your people has been hurt while working on the road. I received one of those calls one night - an employee of mine had been struck by a vehicle while he was providing traffic control for an accident scene.

Fearing the worst; I asked if he was ok.  I was told he was in the emergency room being checked out by a doctor and was unaware of the extent of his injuries.  I made my way to the hospital wondering what had happened and hoping that he would be alright. When I got to his room in the ER; I found him in surprisingly good spirits but a bit sore from where the car hit him and from where he hit the ground.

I asked him what had happened. He told me he had closed down a ramp along the interstate for the traffic accident he got called out for. He said he saw headlights moving toward the ramp. The lights just kept coming at him and at the reflectorized cones delineating the closure. Before he knew it the car was almost on top of him; he jumped out of the way. The car struck his legs and spun him around knocking him to the edge of the roadway and out of the path of the vehicle.  The car continued up the ramp almost striking a police officer as it sped by.

Seeing what had just happened; the police leapt into action. After a frantic car chase, the police were able to get the vehicle stopped before someone else was hurt. We later found out the driver had been drinking and was impaired enough he didn’t know he had hit someone. 

In this instance we were very fortunate that the injuries to my employee weren’t life threatening. It could have been much more tragic and has been in other work zone crashes.  

Our field maintenance and construction workers have a difficult and sometimes dangerous job to do. They do amazing work making the roads safer for the traveling public. Remember to be considerate as you drive the roadway. When you see workers on the roadway, give them room to do their job.

Troy Whitworth is the Assistant Director of Operations at KDOT.

Nothing surprises me anymore



When you’re out on the roadway for a living, you hear, see and sometimes even experience scary moments. 

My name is Kenny Olson and I’m a Roadway Striping Foreman. I’ve been with KTA for 12 years and I have had more close calls on the roadway than many would think. Just last summer, I had vehicles hit at two different times while painting roadway lines.

Kenny Olson

One of these was in Wichita on the entrance ramp from the K-96 plaza. We were painting the white line on the right side, early in the morning when a driver came down the entry ramp way too fast.

Because of her speed, she wasn’t able to move out the way in time and hit the corner of our attenuator (the crash cushion hooked at the back of a truck) and then bounced and hit the guardrail. She was lucky she didn’t hit the truck again after that, but rather carried all the way through the right of way.

The other happened up near Lecompton where the road goes from three lanes to two. We were on the right with the striper when, for a reason I still don’t know today, a semi-truck locks up his brakes while in the left lane. His cab cut between the attenuator truck and the truck ahead of it, and jack-knifed.

The trailer whipped so fast that it hit the attenuator sideways and ended up back in the roadway, blocking traffic. The driver just backed up and drove away! Luckily a trooper caught up to him at a service area soon after.

These are just my two most recent experiences, but there’s been so many more. From a vehicle not paying attention and actually driving between the barrier wall and our striping machine to another driver purposely driving into the grass and back up onto the road to avoid driving through the work zone. Nothing surprises me anymore, and that’s the sad reality.

We can take as many safety precautions as necessary, making changes to safety procedures, but ultimately, drivers need to pay attention. People are in such a hurry, on their phones, or even having a dog on their lap licking their face (yes, that was a real thing I saw once on the road). Leave sooner. Watch the roadway signs. Pay attention.

Sometimes other drivers put us in bad situations



Trooper Ben Gardner

My name is Ben Gardner and for 18 years, I've been a state trooper for the Kansas Highway Patrol.  During my time, I've responded to numerous crashes involving damage, injuries, or death. 

Many of these crashes blur together and get forgotten in my mind. Some will stay with me until the day I no longer wear this uniform and beyond. 

It's easy to bet that most officers remember the first crash they ever responded to while on duty - this is true for me as well. 

The first crash I responded to involved a KDOT grader, which was driving east on U. S. 56, and a teen driver, who was driving fast and failed to recognize the slower, large equipment ahead.  The teen driver collided with the back of the road grader, and his pickup truck rolled multiple times.  Luckily he had his seat belt on. A medical helicopter landed on the scene and transported him to Wichita for treatment. 

The KDOT employee was very shook up.  He was questioning if he did anything wrong, and what could have been done to prevent the crash?  Simply put, the KDOT employee did not do anything wrong.  

This crash, the first one I ever investigated in a new career with the Kansas Highway Patrol, taught me several things that I still believe today. 

1) We might be the best drivers out there, doing nothing wrong, but sometimes other drivers put us in bad situations. This is why we must always wear our seat belts…to prepare for that unwanted, unexpected, not-your-fault situation, not knowing when it's going to play out.

2) When we drive, we must ensure that driving is the primary task at hand, limiting distractions that might take us away from the primary task. Eating, cellphones, talking with others, listening to the radio all move us further away from the focus needed when driving.

This crash occurred 18 years ago, and the lessons learned then are still true today.  

If drivers could see what we see

By Ross Weber

I am Ross Weber and I am the Hutchinson Branch Manager for APAC-Kansas, Inc. Shears Division.

Ross Weber

We spend a lot of time making our work zones safe. It is planned for in our pre-bid evaluations and followed up on throughout the project. We analyze how we can protect our employees from the public as well as how we can protect the public from us. When we see something in our plan isn’t working, we make changes to the situation.

Work zones are a change to the normal traffic pattern. We train our employees constantly about avoiding distractions while in the work zone. We have no training with the public.

We spend a lot of time in training discussing the distractions we see occurring with drivers in our work zone. A lot of people are looking at their phones or talking on their phones. I followed a man through a work zone last year that was watching a movie on his I-Pad. We see people that are asleep, others that are drunk. Imagine someone driving through your workplace watching a movie at 70 mph.

While construction workers are occasionally injured or even killed in work zone accidents, the vast majority of the serious injuries and all of the deaths I have witnessed in 31 years of construction involved the public.

It is devastating to us when our co-workers are injured at work or anywhere else. We work hard to prevent it. We have become adept at avoiding distracted drivers, we know they are there every day. Some of us have known each other and our families for years - it is personal when one of us is injured.

Equally devastating are the accidents involving the public; construction workers are the first responders at work zone accidents. We witness the destruction to vehicles and people that occur when people run into our equipment and each other. All too often we are the ones that administer first aid and comfort until EMS arrives. These accidents take a toll on us emotionally. While most of the time we don’t know the victims of the accidents, we know that like us, they have people expecting them to come home.

If people driving through our work zones could see what construction workers see, they would put down the phones, the I-Pads, the computers, hairbrushes, razors, cheeseburgers and anything else that distracts them and just drive their car.

 

 

My look on traffic control

By Derrick Shannon

I started working for KDOT in August of 2002 on the Garnett Area Crew and am now the 

Derrick Shannon

Area Superintendent in Iola.

The first time I was assigned to flag was on K-68. The crew was putting a hand rail back on a bridge that a car had taken off.  Back then, we used three signs and no cones.  It took about 10 minutes to put up the traffic control.  I was handed the paddle and radio and told to stop traffic.  I got right to work. The morning went fine with cars and trucks stopping as they should.  Just after I went back to my flagging position after my second break of the day, a big yellow dump truck flew past me. The driver did not even touch the brake till he was all the way past me. 

Another close call was just a few years ago when I was the Engineering Technician Specialist on the Iola Subarea crew.  We were patching concrete on U.S. 169. The crew members had the traffic control in place and were using the new automated flaggers. I was running the controls and had just closed the northbound flagger to stop traffic. A car was coming into the work zone and was about at the sign that says do not pass. The driver drove right around the automated flagger, came right up to where I was running the remote and told me the flagger was broke because the arm just fell down right in front of them.

I have only been involved in one accident in a work zone in my 14-year career with KDOT and lucky for me and the crew, no one was hurt. It happened on U.S. 54 when I was an Equipment Operator. A semi-truck slammed into the back of a pickup truck that was stopped at the flagger. Lucky for everyone involved the semi turned into the ditch. The pickup truck that was hit only went about 50 feet forward and the flagger was able to get out of the way.

I really want to thank all of the Kansas Department of Transportation people that worked so hard at coming up with the set-up for traffic control that we use today. I believe the workers are better protected now from distracted drivers that they come across on the roads.

I am reminded of these times when I hear crews complain about having to spend so much time setting out 30 lead-in cones, 10 signs, six cone tapers at both ends, a crash attenuator, a buffer zone and a pilot car. I just let them know how much safer they are nowadays than what we were in previous years.

2017 National Work Zone Awareness Week

Starting Monday, April 3 and running to Friday, April 7, new blogs will be posted each day as part of our National Work Zone Awareness Week series. Highway workers, contractors and law enforcement will share stories highlighting why work zone safety is so important.

For a variety of transportation-related articles, please check our other KDOT blog site that posts stories and photos several times each week – it's at http://kansastransportation.blogspot.com/

Things that work

By Brad Halseth

      Let me start by saying that I cannot count the number of near misses that I have experienced in work zones as a KDOT employee from things such as motorists running past flagmen, driving through the cones or on the wrong side of cones, or just completely ignoring the traffic control. I am not only fortunate but thankful that I have never been part of an accident in a work zone that cost someone their life. A large part of that I am sure is due to the fact that we are deliberate with the way we set up our traffic control.

      In work zones all across the country, the color orange is associated with traffic control and work zone awareness in general. The color orange is a color that seemingly gets motorists’ attention better than any other. With that being said, people also want to get through work zones as quickly or as painless as possible also, which tends make them less observant from time to time.

      I know that we as an agency look for ways to improve or enhance the safety in our work zones. I have had an opportunity at KDOT to work in many variations of work zones over the years as updates and procedure changes have occurred. Some of these changes were an improvement and worked well, and with others the impact on the traveling public was very minimal.

      Since the introduction of the LED light bars to our trucks we have noticed that these tend to get the attention of motorists. Some of our vehicles are also equipped with white LED lights which have been even more beneficial.

      For many years we used a construction grade sheeting for our signage in work zones. We now use a more high performance sheeting which also makes our signs stand out to the traveling public. We also add flags that add a moving visual element to our work zones as they move in the Kansas wind.

      These are just a few items that helped aid our work efforts over the years, I am sure that there will be other changes in the future. We will continue to incorporate changes as they are made as I am sure they are for the safety of our employees and the motorists of Kansas.

Brad Halseth is the Area Superintendent at the Great Bend KDOT office.

Traffic zone safety from the other side of the cones

By Ryan Blosser

      With over 20 years in the construction business, I’ve seen my fair share of work zones and more accidents than I can remember. 

      One instance I remember like it was yesterday was when we were repairing the Kansas Turnpike. We had the road closed to one lane and were working behind the cones in the closed lane. I vividly remember looking back at the oncoming traffic and seeing a car slowing to a stop in the open lane. What happened next I will never forget. 

      Coming around a corner in the open lane was a tanker truck loaded with crude oil. The truck driver couldn’t stop in time and had three options.  He could hit the car and most likely kill the stopping driver, swerve into the closed lane and kill all of us working on the highway or head for the ditch and possibly hit a bridge pier and kill himself. Lucky for us he took the ditch option. 

      As the truck went by on nine of his 18 wheels, it narrowly missed the bridge and somehow came to a rest on all its tires.  As he pulled out of the ditch and into the closed area, I ran down to make sure he was alright and thanked him for not taking the closed lane option. Looking back at that near miss I was able to see how something as simple as not slowing down in a traffic zone turned in a nightmare. We were lucky no one was hurt.

      Working closely with the Kansas Department of Transportation and the Kansas Turnpike Authority you learn quickly that a priority is the traveling public and the workers’ safety.  As a Project Manager I feel personally responsible for both the safety of my crews and employees along with every person who travels through that work zone. So I ask, for your safety and ours, if you’re driving through a work zone please put down your phone, look out ahead, pay attention, follow the signs and KEEP MOVING FORWARD! 

      Ryan Blosser is the General Manager/Contractor Division of Hamm Inc. in Perry

It could have been so much worse

By Mark Roberts
         In my 25 years with the Kansas Turnpike Authority, I’ve seen several alarming situations in construction zones and I’ve had about five near-death experiences. One of those incidents happened just eight months ago, and not just to me, but also to nine other employees.
         It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon on the 21st of August last year. We were laying new pavement on the roadway near East Wichita. I was checking the output of the asphalt mixture like usual when our flagger down the road starts yelling at us to move and get out of the way. It was at that point that a driver swerved into his direction. He was fortunate enough to make it into the ditch in time.
         Your first instinct is to get to safety, and almost all of us were able to. However, the driver of the paver couldn’t get out and in the ditch in time. The driver quickly traveled through the freshly laid mix and headed straight toward the paver. Luckily, the driver swerved back into the lane right before hitting it. Things would have been so much worse if that had not happened.
         It was the middle of the afternoon, but we suspect the driver was impaired, though the driver was never caught. It goes to show that distracted and impaired driving doesn’t happen during a certain time of the day or night, but rather can happen at any moment.
         In fact, on a different day during that same paving project, KTA's communications team was filming and observed 25 distracted drivers in one hour’s time - from texting to reading a newspaper, even a dog on a driver’s lap.
         I implore you - pay attention while you are driving, particularly in work zones. Follow the decreased speed limit, and put down that phone.
         These employees are working to provide a better road for you and they deserve the respect of attentive drivers. They have families they want to get home to also.


Mark Roberts is an Engineering Technician in Wichita with the Kansas Turnpike Authority

If you see the news, I’m ok

By Erin La Row
         Being married to a law enforcement officer is not for the faint of heart. I’ve had my share of phone calls that start off with, “If you see the news, I’m OK.” When my husband, Steve, experiences something traumatic at work, I feel it, too. Especially when it’s an accident involving children. After all, I’m his partner – aka counselor.
         I joke that Steve has crammed an entire career’s worth of experiences into the relatively short 12 years he’s been a law enforcement officer. Surprisingly, it’s not the arrests of gang members, drug raids or bad guys with guns keeping me up at night. It’s the routine traffic stop or tire change along the highway that worries me the most.
         I’m sure highway workers and their families can relate. You have drivers distracted for various reasons. They’re tired or perhaps intoxicated, texting, reading (crazy, I know, but I’ve witnessed it), or fidgeting with the radio. Add high rates of speed, throw in some inclement weather and my husband or a highway worker standing just a few feet away and it’s a tragedy that could have been avoided. The highway can be terribly unforgiving.
         I don’t dwell on the dangers Steve may face each and every day. There isn’t enough anxiety medication in the world. I take comfort knowing Steve has a keen sense of officer safety, as do his colleagues. As my mom used to tell me when I was a teen, it’s the other drivers I worry about. When Steve is working the highway, there are two little boys at home missing him. Waiting for him. Depending on him. And that has made me more mindful of how I drive. I hope we can all safely get through our day and to our destination. There are precious people waiting for us.
         Please slow down in work zones or when you come upon a law enforcement vehicle along the side of the road. After all, they’re simply people (moms and dads, children and grandparents – maybe your friend or neighbor) working to make this world safer for you. And don’t text and drive. Nothing you need to say in a text is more important than a life, whether it’s the love of my life or yours.

Erin La Row is the spouse of Stephen La Row, Technical Trooper with the Kansas Highway Patrol

Too many close calls

By Shad Lohman
      I work for the Kansas Department of Transportation. I have worked in the construction department for almost 30 years and almost everything that we do is behind that thin orange line.
      Work zone safety has to be the priority every day you come to work inside that construction zone.  If you do not make it a priority, bad things happen. There are many examples, and here are a few that have happened in our work group:

uAn Interstate reconstruction project had started on I-70 with traffic placed in a head to head pattern. A late snow storm occurred. An accident happened and air ambulance was needed. A KDOT employee risked their own life to get out in the snow and slow traffic down so it didn’t become a multi-vehicle pileup. A vehicle went into a spin and almost got him. Had he not kept his awareness up, a bad thing could have happened.

uAnother I-70 project had winter work of pre-splitting back slopes. Traffic was merged into the passing lane.  A driver drove through the traffic cones and past some equipment before colliding with a flatbed truck – air ambulance was required.  This type of work zone is common and one could become relaxed, but this work group had remained aware and got each other out of the way.

uA group of teenagers were joy riding in a closed work zone.  Luckily there were no workers present, but the teenagers found themselves in an excavation for a culvert.  They received injuries – not life threatening.

uAgain on I-70, a vehicle/trailer combo missed the median cross over and drove through the traffic cones and collided into the concrete safety barrier. Other vehicles followed. This caused a multi-car accident with fatalities. A KDOT employee arrived on the scene just as it happened because they were planning on going to work that morning in this exact location. The employee helped out as best he could. The memories of that morning convinced him to seek another job.

uA driver decided to do a U-turn on I-70 in a construction zone that was carrying head-to-head traffic. The driver did not complete the u-turn before the collision. The driver of the turning vehicle was pronounced dead at the scene. The other vehicle’s driver sustained significant injuries. That other driver could have easily been anyone of us. Why did the driver decide to ignore the work zone and all its warnings?

uI was on an I-70 median cross-over and became engrossed in thoughts of the project.  I was walking back to my vehicle and heard a loud horn that stopped me in my tracks. A semi-tractor/trailer’s rear view mirror came within inches of my face. After a long while, I was able to get back to my vehicle where I remained for almost an hour before regaining composure. Had that driver not honked/swerved, I would not be here writing this.

This is just a small sampling of what our work group goes through each and every day. The public’s awareness and the worker’s awareness are the reasons we go home each evening.

Shad Lohman is the District Two Construction and Materials Engineer in Salina.

 

2016 National Work Zone Awareness Week blog series

Check back soon here for our annual National Work Zone Awareness Week safety blog series that will begin on Monday, April 11, and run until Friday, April 15. Highway workers and other will share stories highlighting why work zone safety is so important.

For a variety of transportation-related articles, please check our other KDOT blog site that posts stories and photos several times each week – it's at http://kansastransportation.blogspot.com/

Safety - from my point of view

By Pete Quinlan

Safety is the upmost priority on every job.  A serious workplace injury or death changes lives forever.  Not just for the workplace, but for families, friends, communities, and coworkers too.  Human loss and suffering is immeasurable.  No monetary value can be put on your employee’s life. 

If someone were to ask you why safety is important, how would you respond?  You may “know” that it’s important to keep safety in mind as you go about your daily work, but how would you explain the reasons why this is the case?  Here is something to think about.

Humans become tolerable to their environment over a period of time.  When I am on a heavy highway job, I am tolerable and comfortable with traffic flying by at 80 mph.  I can go about my work and think nothing of it. 

When someone new comes out to the job, such as an inspector or contractor, and an 18-wheeler passes by at 75 mph, I can for sure expect a “deer in the headlight look!”  Everyone needs to pay attention to what they are doing and watch their surroundings.  Every year you hear on the news where a contractor or KDOT worker was struck by a vehicle and killed.  These accidents can be prevented. 

Besides paying attention to your work environment, highway workers need to make sure they have the correct Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).  Can I be seen by motorist?  A worker needs to be sure his vest is bright and in good condition.

As the superintendent on the job, my ultimate goal is to make sure everyone goes home at night to see their families.

Pete Quinlan is with Bettis Asphalt & Construction, Inc.

 

 

Move over for workers

Scott Thompson, KTA Assistant Foreman, shares his scary, personal story about an incident in a work zone October 2014.

It was October 28, 2014. I remember it was around lunchtime and it was a nice, bright sunny day. We were working on patching a part of the road at mile marker 204. The road was down to one lane on the outside. To keep safe, we had a crash barrier with an arrow board on the back of a truck to signal to drivers we were around.

The wind was breezy that day, so I let a car pass by - I didn’t want it to get asphalt on it. Then I stepped out on the divider line. I saw another car coming, and I believed I was making eye contact with the driver. The next thing I knew, that car swerved over and hit the cone just in front of our barrier truck. I yelled, “Look out!” and rushed two steps back. The car went down into that hole where I was standing! The driver came out of the hole and just barely missed our other truck. She took out more cones while she fled the scene.

Fortunately, we were able to call it in to troopers who caught up with the driver later down the road, thanks to the good description a fellow co-worker got of the vehicle and the driver. We later learned that she admitted to the trooper she fell asleep at the wheel.

If I hadn’t seen that vehicle, it’s likely I wouldn’t have gotten out of the way in time. My co-worker who was on a truck would have most likely been hit as well. I guess it just wasn’t my day to die, and I’m grateful for that!

If you’re driving through a work zone, remember to slow down and pay attention. Move over for workers. When you see those arrow boards telling you to move over, do so immediately, not later. Workers put their lives at risk making the roads better for you.

You will always be loved

By Shirley McDonald

Before you turn on the ignition of your vehicle, take a moment and a deep breath.  Focus.  Clear your mind and think safety for yourself and others.  Engage your seat belt, forget the cell phone. 

Before entering a work zone, pay attention to the alerts that are given well before entry into the zone.  Think about those whose lives depend upon you.  We have all heard these admonitions, unfortunately many do not really listen to the message. Save a life, it may be your own.

 

In memory of Scott McDonald

killed in a work zone June 1, 2005:

A fraction of a second, a different decision, more awareness, and response ability and you might still be here with your family and friends.  A horrific work zone accident on highway 75 took you away from us 10 years ago and our memories, dreams and plans with you and for you all changed. 

Now you are immortalized, frozen in time while we go on living.  You are missed every second of every day. Your loss created a hole that cannot be filled.  A piece of each of us left behind died with you. Thankfully, you gave so much to us during your life that we can hold on to who you were and who you were becoming, but we will never know who you would have become. 

Your enthusiasm for life, your constant dreaming that life would always get better, knowing that effort and direction in life could get you where you wanted to be are sorely missed. Your commitment to caring for and about others is a precious memory. Each holiday, birthday, anniversary, special shared event becomes a time of sadness and memory of you and your lack of presence in our lives today. We have had to learn to get beyond constant grief and focus on today and what we can do to honor your name. 

As we have said goodbye to other relatives and friends our grief for your loss has swelled again and threatened to overtake us, but that grief has also proven to us that life goes on and that even with grief there can be joy as we commit to other relationships taking the risk to lose again knowing the benefits of being connected.

No one knows what happens when we die. But my mother's belief is that heaven exists and that you are there at peace and with those you have loved who have gone before you. I believe that you can see those of us left behind and serve as our angel. You will always be loved.

Shirley McDonald is the mother of KDOT employee Scotty McDonald, who was killed in a work zone crash in 2005.

Complaints

By Casey Simoneau

Often times, I hear how inconvenient work zones can be.  People complain that they add 15 minutes to their trip and the lanes are too narrow.  I also hear that when there are no workers present, why should I have to slow down?  All of these are complaints are minimal compared to the cost of not obeying the safety markings, signs or cones that are designed to keep the workers’ as safe as possible.

What may be an inconvenience to you may be the opportunity to go home for others.   What exactly does this mean?   This means that taking that extra time to slow down and obey the safety devices allows for these individuals working in the work zones to go home at night.  The greatest gift of life that we are given is family.  To me, a 15-minute “inconvenience” is a small price to pay to allow these families to get to enjoy more time together.  

Yes, sometimes the lanes may be narrow, but this allows workers the most adequate space between what is potentially a deadly scenario and the ability to complete their job.   Workers in an office or cubicle are allowed and expect to have room to complete their jobs.  Why should highway workers be any different?  They need their space as well.  So yes, while the narrower lanes may be an inconvenience to some, it’s a safety barrier for others.

At times there may be no workers present during the construction phase.  However, humans are creature of habits.  The majority like to have the same habits day in and day out.  Therefore, by continually enforcing the work zone safety laws, regardless of worker presence, allows a new habit to be formed by the motoring public and decrease the risk of injury or death to the work zone workers.

Finally, I want people to remember that each of these workers have family.  Someone calls them mom, dad, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, brother or sister.  They have people who love them and care about them just like we do.  These individuals deserve the opportunity to spend more time with the ones they love.  So, the citizens who get the luxury to enjoy the great highways that are built from this labor should also respect the workers who work in them.  Slow down, obey the safety signs/signals and allow for these highway workers to spend another night at home with the ones they love.

Casey Simoneau is a Technical Trooper with the Kansas Highway Patrol

 

Everyone else's driving

By Brad Reeh

Work zones are there to protect the workers and the motorists. When we are out working on the road, we depend on our work zones to keep the motorists and KDOT employees safe. With all the technology that we have in the vehicle like cell phones, GPS and other gadgets, many motorists are not paying attention to what is going on in front of them.

It was the summer of 2012, shortly after I became the Supervisor in Colby – a 95 degree day and we were doing some patching on Highway 25. We had all the equipment needed and all the traffic control signs out that were needed at the time. We were half-way done with the job and I sent an employee to get some more material so we could finish the patching. I went to relieve one of the flagmen and to give him a break because he had been flagging most of the day. I was flagging for about 20 minutes, enjoying the day, when I had a motorist stop. The motorist got out of his truck, which was hauling batteries, and asked how long the wait was. I informed him it would only be a few minutes or so.

The driver got back in his truck and put his seat belt on while he waited to be released. I noticed a bull hauler coming up from behind him at a high rate of speed. It was like he did not see the truck. I waved my arms to get his attention, and as he looked up, it was too late. The bull hauler turned to the ditch, and as he was turning he hit the back of the truck that was stopped.

After it was over, I radioed the other flagger to hold all traffic because there was an accident that had occurred. I call 911 and had another employee come to relieve me so that I could check on the driver of the battery truck. I then also checked on the bull hauler driver and both were fine. I asked the driver of the bull hauler if he had not seen the traffic control signs and to my surprise, he said that he had not.

Later on, after the Highway Patrol was finished with the accident, one of the patrolmen came up to me and said the bull hauler was not paying attention. This could have been a lot worse, not only for the truck driver, but also for everyone in the area.

Like I tell my kids, it’s not your driving I worry about, it’s everyone else’s driving that worries me.

Brad Reeh is the KDOT Subarea Supervisor in Colby

2015 National Work Zone Awareness Week

 

From March 23 to March 27, a new blog will be posted every day from people sharing their stories and experiences focusing on why work zone safety is so important as part of the 2015 National Work Zone Awareness Week efforts in Kansas

Please feel free to share this link with others - our goal is for everyone to be safe in work zones, both the highway workers and the motorists.

Also check out our Go Orange website filled with lots of safety information at http://www.ksdot.org/offTransInfo/GoOrange/WorkZoneSafety.asp

Numbers are more than just statistics

By Sue Reiss

         We all see the highway fatality statistics, and following a seven-year decline, they rose 5% in 2012, to 36,200 traffic fatalities, which included over 700 work zone deaths that year. Those numbers are more than just statistics. Each one of those numbers represents a person who left behind parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and friends who were devastated by their loss.
         Those victims will never walk their daughters down the aisle, or meet their grandchildren. The tragedy of these lost lives is unspeakable. Those that are lost in work zone accidents touch each of us personally because they were part of our industry and by extension, our lives. The deaths of those men, women and children break our hearts every time a work zone fatality becomes public, even if we didn’t know them personally. They were a part of our collective family, and each loss is heartbreaking.
         The ATSS Foundation is aligned with ATSSA in their Toward Zero Deaths mantra.  As such, our focus for 2014 and beyond is threefold.  Toward Zero Deaths, Toward Zero Scholarships, Toward Zero Names of the Foundation’s National Work Zone Memorial Wall.
         The American Traffic Safety Services Foundation helps the families of those lost by providing scholarships to the children and/or remaining spouses of those deceased, or even permanently disabled workers. This year, the Foundation Board elected to raise the amount of our scholarships so that their value is even more meaningful to their recipients. I feel blessed to have met a number of those children in person, and have spoken to even more of the recipients and applicants on the phone. In addition to the emotional loss of their loved ones, they are often left with a financial loss that potentially eliminates their hopes and dreams of a college degree. The scholarships that the Foundation provides these surviving children are often desperately needed in order for them to attend college. Without them, I have been told many times, college might have been out of their reach.
         The Memorial Wall’s names are those that have been lost “between the signs,” whether DOT personnel, workers, motorists or even pedestrians.  The Foundation struggles to find the names of those people, since there does not exist a source for that information, along with the names of their families, who need to give permission for their names to be added to the Memorial.   We are always looking for help from anyone that may have knowledge to share in regards to those names.
         For more information, please visit the ATSSA Foundation website at http://www.atssa.com/TheFoundation.aspx.

Sue Reiss is the ATSSA Foundation Board President

Work Zone Awareness: A Partnership in Safety

By Jake Jackson

         I’ll never forget that day last spring. My crew and I were applying high friction surface coating to a bridge near El Dorado on the Turnpike. It was a pretty normal day and project. We’d set up the work zone shutting down the right-hand lane of northbound traffic. Things were going well and we were at the half-way point of the bridge.
        The next thing we knew a car rear-ended another car, careened out of the left-bound lane and entered our work zone. The crew and I fled the area and the car stopped just feet from where we’d been working. We were okay just terribly shaken up. (On bridges, there’s just nowhere to go!)
         It would have been nice to catch our breath, but the reality is we couldn’t. Traffic was now blocked in both lanes. We had to quickly take action as traffic would be backing up, greatly increasing the likelihood of yet another accident.
         We notified dispatch and called for a tow truck. Because traffic backed up behind the accident, these emergency helpers had to drive against traffic to get to us. We had patrol, not assigned to the Turnpike, assist as well. It was a mess to say the least. Traffic was backed up about 2 ½ miles in just the 10 minutes it took to clear a lane and get things moving again.
         So what do I want you to learn from this story? It’s that work zone safety is a partnership. We’ll set up work zones, but we need you – the traveling public – to work hard at keeping yourself safe. If you do this, you’ll keep us safe, too.
Here’s what we do to make work zones safe:
      1.    Activate the digital message signs along the turnpike
      2.    Close lanes for work, measuring and marking well in advance of the actual work zone
      3.    Set up width restrictions so wide loads are diverted and not allowed to travel in the work area
      4.    Wear reflective clothing
      5.    Keep the number of workers to a minimum

Here are some things we’d like you to remember when near or in a work zone:

      1.    Be prepared for merging or changing lanes
      2.    Watch for flaggers
      3.    Go slow; be prepared to stop
      4.    Maintain a safe following distance
      5.    Avoid distracted driving
          As far as my crew and I, we’re back at it – just extra cautious. We hope this spring and summer will be work-zone accident free and that you’ll be joining us to keep work zones safe for everyone.

Jake Jackson is an Equipment Foreman with the Kansas Turnpike Authority