With spring and summer, along with the barbeques, pool parties and vacation days that come with warm weather, so does one other inevitability: road construction. The week of April 26-30, 2021 is National Work Zone Awareness Week. Road construction occurs all throughout the year, but tends to start ramping up in the warmer spring and summer months. So now is a good time to review some good safety practices on construction zone safety.
Work zones separate construction activities and construction workers from traffic, allowing both to work in harmony. However, construction zones create a different traffic pattern and can sometimes be confusing areas. On top of that, there are workers and machinery moving about. Speed reduction areas, delays for pilot cars, and even route changes can affect our time schedules too.
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, 2019 fatalities rose 11% from 2018.
- There were 762 fatal crashes in work zones, 324 on arterial roads and 287 on the interstates
- There were 842 fatalities in work zones, 690 of those fatalities were drivers and passengers
- Of the fatal crashes, 33% were commercial motor vehicles
- 31% of fatalities involved speed
- 24% of fatalities were rear-end collisions
National Work Zone Awareness Week Events and Materials and Go Orange
You are encouraged to participate in Go Orange Day on Wednesday April 28, 2021 and wear orange to spread the message of work zone safety with your friends, family, coworkers and community. There are a ton of resources out there to share with your workers as part of your weekly safety messages and meetings. Here are some links to some sites for national and state event information and resources you can download:
National WorkZone Safety Information Clearinghouse (National and State Site Links)
Download a Flyer to Share with Your Workers from the National Work Zone Week Site
Download iSi’s 1-page Safety Toolbox Flyer With Safety Tips to Share With Your Team
National Work Zone Awareness Week Website
Participate – National Work Zone Awareness Event Tool Kit
Struck-By National Stand-Down Week
Along with National Work Zone Awareness Week, NIOSH’s National Occupational Research Agenda’s (NORA) Construction Sector Council is promoting the National Stand-Down to Prevent Struck-By Incidents. Struck-by hazards have been OSHA’s leading cause of death and non-fatal injuries since 1992.
NORA will be hosting 2 webinars on Monday April 26. One is about cranes and lifting and the other is preventing struck-by incidents. To register, download this flyer about the event.
You can also find a wide variety of training materials, infographics and other resources on struck by hazards here on the Center for Construction Research and Training Website.
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