Every Drivers' Responsibility: Keep Highway Workers Safe | Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp

National Work Zone Awareness Week spanned Monday through Friday, April 7-11, 2014.

Proof of the need to remind every car, truck, bus, SUV and motorcycle operator to slow down, move over and eliminate all distractions while cruising through stretches of highway construction and repair comes from two separate April 9 accidents in the same I-97 work zone in Anne Arundel County, Maryland (MD). People in two of the six vehicles involved in those crashes suffered injuries serious enough to require hospital treatment.

As dangerous as work zones can be for people driving through them, road crews and safety personnel face even greater risks. In the following video, a Virginia (VA) state trooper who was monitoring traffic shares his story of being hit by an inattentive driver who swerved through a row of orange construction cones in the following video.

Statistics compiled by the Virginia Department of Transportation reveal that more than 3,500 crashes occurred in work zones during 2012, leading to 1,582 injuries and 13 deaths. Almost every one of those rear-end collisions, pedestrian accidents and fixed-object collisons (e.g., sideswiping a Jersey wall, hitting a construction vehicle) probably could have prevented.

Every driver needs to practice work zone awareness every day. Failing to do so causes far too much property damage and too many injuries and wrongful deaths.

EJL