Road work crash deaths decline
Fewer people died from accidents in road construction zones last year, and some say that's partly because of a sharp shift at PennDOT that has placed more police at those zones.
PennDOT doubled the money it spent to post state police at work zones in 2001 after realizing that is the best way to curb accidents, injuries and deaths that happen there. The effort not only is to protect construction workers, but motorists making their way through the zones.
"There was a realization that what seems to be the most effective measure to get people to slow down in work zones is to have a police presence, marked cars with lights flashing," said PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick. "That seems to have the most dramatic impact."
In 2001, PennDOT spent $4.5 million to post police at work sites — nearly 70 percent more than the $2.7 million spent in 2000 — and the number of people killed in construction areas dropped by 30 percent, according to PennDOT.
"It's hard to make a strong inference from a year's set of data," said Capt. Richard Stein of the state police. "I believe we do enhance the safety for the workers and everybody who travels through that construction zone. I think the crash statistics would reflect that."
Whether the drop in fatalities is a direct result of the increased police presence or only part of the equation, state officials say they're on the right road. Not only does the agency intend to continue the current level of police presence, it wants to add new measures that will grab motorists' attention.
Flashing and strobe lights could be used at work zones and construction workers could trade the traditional PennDOT blaze-orange vests for lime green uniforms — just to be sure a weary driver doesn't mistake a road worker for a construction barrel.
This new set of changes, already endorsed by the state House, could be adopted this fall, if the state Senate approves them. Hoffman says it will.
"It does delineate an active work zone from an inactive work zone," he said. "I fully expect it will pass."
PennDOT scrutinized their work zones safety procedures after 12 people died in an Interstate 81 work area near Harrisburg in 1997, Hoffman said.
PennDOT beefed up state police after that and now has a statewide task force that looks at work zone safety measures, he said.
Five workers died in October after the driver of an apple truck lost control while driving through a construction zone on Route 60 near the Vanport Bridge in Beaver County. The truck swerved into the middle construction area, striking the workers. The follow-up investigation revealed that the truck's brakes had failed.
Nationally, 1,079 people were killed in 2001 in highway construction zone accidents, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. Over the past five years, the number of fatalities within work zones has risen 65 percent, the association reported.
Traffic fines are double in work zones, but police acknowledge it's difficult to enforce inside the construction area, where lanes might be tighter than normal and finding spots for police cruisers to safely monitor motorists' speeds and catch violators is often not feasible. That's why they focus on slowing motorists down before the work zones, said Stein of the state police.
"We try to run enforcement details in the mile or two before the work zones," he said. "It's really tough to enforce in the work zones."
Most often, a state police officer assigned to a construction site will pull a marked cruiser to the side of a highway just before motorists encounter orange barrels, restricted lanes of traffic, concrete barriers or shifting lanes to the right or left.
When motorists spot the marked police car ahead, lights flashing, they often hit the brakes instinctively. Even veteran police officers driving the speed limit hit their brakes.
"It's very effective," Kirkpatrick said. "People slow down for that."
Using police presence in this way has been viewed as so effective in some other states that officials there have made it mandatory. That's the case in Massachusetts.
There were 1,988 crashes in work areas in 2000, the last year PennDOT has available statistics, Kirkpatrick said. That dropped from 2,184 in 1999 and 2,016 in 1998.
