MoDOT, road workers emphasize work zone safety

Jenna Wilson, St. Joseph News-Press, Mo.
·3 min read

Apr. 19—Road crews are stressing the importance of driving with caution near work zones as construction season begins.

Troy Slagle, assistant district engineer with the Missouri Department of Transportation, said spring is one of the busiest times of the year for road workers as they aim to work around busy traffic.

"It's that season, and the price of progress is having those orange barrels, orange cones and lane closures out there," he said. "All these things have to happen to make the roads better, but unfortunately, it does put not only the motorists at risk, but it puts our workers at risk because they're out there having to work in that traffic."

As crews complete tasks on the roads like striping and pothole patching, St. Joseph road workers do have concern for their safety at times.

"Big trucks, buses and speeding cars, those are our main problems," said road worker Colin Walker. "We've got a lot of cars that come in here, just don't care about us working around them and they fly right on by us. So, we've always got to keep an eye out for a car that's speeding on by."

Officials with MoDOT say work zone safety is a matter of life or death. Since 2000, 35 MoDOT employees have been killed while working. Sixteen of those fatalities took place in work zones.

Due to incidents like this, MoDOT ensures all their workers are as safe as possible by having a truck-mounted attenuator at every work zone.

"We've got our TMA, also known as a crash cushion, out in our front yard here," Slagle said. "It mounts on the back of a truck and we put that in advance of our workers so if somebody is distracted, not paying attention and they go into the wrong lane, it can safely stop that vehicle and protect our workers."

This week, crews displayed a TMA that a distracted driver previously ran into to emphasize the dangers unawareness can bring.

"The one we have for display is from an accident in one of our local work zones when a driver wasn't paying attention," he said. "They drove into one of our work zones and crushed the TMA. Fortunately, the person that hit it walked away, but it did its job. It protected our workers and kept somebody from getting killed."

The biggest area of concern for road workers' safety is interstates, and as the spring road construction continues across the city of St. Joseph, road workers are reminding drivers to simply slow down and be aware.

"Awareness is the biggest thing and it takes everyone," Walker said. "We have to do our part by making sure everything's in the right spot for the detour, our road closed signs, and making sure cones are set up right. But in return, we need drivers to follow the rules as well and drive no more than 15 mph in the work zone and we have high-(visibility) vests so we should be very noticeable."

Jenna Wilson can be reached at jenna.wilson@newspressnow.com.