S A F E T Y S P OT L I G H T
Three Ways IIJA Aims to Amp Up Work Zone Safety BY ASPHALTPRO STAFF
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n average, about 135 roadway workers are killed on the job annually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “In the heavy civil construction sector, struck-bys are both the number one cause of fatalities and non-fatal injuries,” said Bradley Sant, senior vice president of safety and education at the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA). Sant said the number of fatalities in work zones has been increasing for years, even when normalized against increased road work, based on the total number of road construction workers in place and the dollar value of road construction projects. “What does that mean when we see a huge jump in funding? Unless we do something to change that [fatality] rate, we could see some real causes for concern.” The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) delivers a 44% increase in core federal highway funding between FY 2021 and FY 2022. Beginning in 2023, ARTBA estimates the IIJA funding will result in at least 4,000 additional work sites annually. “There’s going to be a tremendous amount of work going on over the next eight to 10 years,” said Scott Earnest, associate director for construction safety and health at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), during a recent webinar. “It’s important when this work is done that it’s done safely.” Fortunately, Sant outlined a number of provisions in the IIJA that deal specifically with struck-bys. This includes funding for the Highway Safety Improvement Program (HSIP), including for automated speed enforcement in work zones; the creation of safety contingency funds; and the requirement of safety benchmarks for vulnerable road users, which includes roadway construction workers. If neither static nor moveable barriers are an option, Huizinga recommends measures like temporary rumble strips, truck-mounted attenuators, or intrusion alarms to alert workers when a cone has been struck so they can get out of the way. She also stresses the importance of frequently inspecting and cleaning channelizing devices to ensure they are as visible as possible to the motoring public. Sant also mentioned automatic cone placement technology that places cones without workers having to leave the truck. “That’s showing a lot of promise,” he said.
AUTOMATED SPEED ENFORCEMENT
“The HSIP is traditionally aimed at infrastructure improvements that make roads safer for motorists,” Sant said. However, he added, some of that funding is now available for automated speed enforcement in work zones. “While automated speed enforcement is not a new program, there are only a couple states that have made a lot of use of it over the years,” 8 | JULY 2022
Sant said, spotlighting Illinois, Maryland and Pennsylvania, with other states more recently adopting the practice. For example, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is deploying automated speed enforcement on some long-term projects this summer, said Marchel Johnson, assistant director of safety, security and emergency management at VDOT. The Connecticut Department of Transportation (CTDOT) is also piloting the use of automated speed enforcement in work zones this summer. Any motorist going 15 mph over the posted speed limit in a work zone will receive a warning for the first violation, a $75 fine for the second violation, and a $150 fine for the third violation, with tickets mailed directly to the vehicle owner’s home. “The two most frequent causes of work zone safety accidents are speeding and distracted driving,” said David Ferraro, a survivor of a
LEARN MORE A Close Call in Connecticut David Ferraro was working on the southbound lanes of I-95 in Greenwich, Connecticut, just a few miles from the border with New York State on Nov. 16, 1995, when he was struck by a drunk driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel. It was the beginning of the night paving shift, when the crew was standing behind the paver going over final details and waiting for the first load of mix. Two of the three lanes—the right and center lanes—were closed to traffic, with the paver and crew in the right lane. When a fellow inspector pulled into the closed center lane to speak with Ferraro and a coworker, they walked over to the pickup truck with their backs to traffic in the open left lane. A few moments later, the drunk driver crashed into the pickup truck, bounced back into the active lane of traffic, and sped off into New York where he was later caught by Connecticut police. “I was dazed at the time and didn’t even realize I’d been struck,” Ferraro said. Before the driver hit Ferraro and the pickup truck, they had hit several cones and sent them flying in all directions, hitting Ferraro and his coworkers. “I thought I was only hit by cones until a state police officer noticed my jeans were ripped and had gray paint on them from the car.” “If the collision point had been a few inches different, both me and my coworker next to me would have been crushed between the vehicles,” Ferraro said. “If the driver didn’t crash into the truck and bounce back into the active lane, he would have crashed into the back of the paver and seriously hurt or killed six highway workers standing there.”
