Monday, March 31, 2008
Drivers can prevent work zone deaths
From the RoundTable blog
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Richard Caywood
Caywood is the district administrator for the Virginia Department of Transportation, Salem District.
It's been just over a month since the tragic loss of Richard Slone, a construction worker who was killed Feb. 20 in a work zone on Virginia 419 in Roanoke County. Like many others who live in the Cave Spring area, I was surprised and saddened by the accident. My home is just a few miles from the accident site. My wife had driven through the work zone only hours before the accident occurred.
In the days that followed, friends, neighbors and members of my church talked about the accident. Even for those who didn't know anyone involved, the tragedy had a personal impact because it happened so close to home.
As the district administrator for the Virginia Department of Transportation's Salem District, the accident also had a profound professional impact. While the crash did not involve a VDOT project, it easily could have.
Each day, hundreds of VDOT employees perform their jobs in work zones like the one on Virginia 419. These workers put themselves in harm's way to improve travel for the rest of us. While we place signs and cones in the road and wear vests so our workers are easy to see, these tools are no match for a 3,000-pound car.
At VDOT, our crews have safety discussions at the beginning of each workday. Our employees teach work zone safety to thousands of area drivers-education students every year. For VDOT, work zone safety is a top priority. We want it to be a priority for drivers, too.
Last year in Virginia, crashes in state-maintained highway work zones killed 11 people. More highway workers are killed each year than police and firefighters combined. In the U.S., every seven hours someone is killed in a work zone. Before many of us shut down our computers or clock out for the day, someone else will have lost his or her life in a work zone. It takes only one inattentive driver to change someone's life forever.
This year VDOT will participate in the annual observation of Work Zone Awareness Week in conjunction with National Work Zone Awareness Week, April 7-11. This year's theme is "Slow for the Cone Zone."
Motorists often forget that it is everyone's job to keep work zones safe. In fact, drivers are four times more likely to be killed in work zone crashes than the employees in the work zone. These three steps can mean the difference between life and death:
n When you see the orange signs, be alert for changing conditions ahead.
n Slow down and expect the unexpected. Pay attention to your surroundings. You may encounter lane shifts, construction vehicles entering and leaving the roadway, or changed speed limits.
n Minimize distractions. Avoid changing radio stations and using mobile phones while driving in a work zone.
We will do our part to keep Virginia moving, but we need you to "Give us a Brake" and go "Slow for the Cone Zone."
While we cannot bring back the lives we've lost in highway work zones, we can honor those people by doing our part to make sure it doesn't happen again.
To learn more about how you can keep yourself and highway workers safe in work zones, visit VirginiaDOT.org.
