Safety is not an Accident

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Today we have a couple of field stories from one of our construction engineers. Heather Gendron has been with us for a few years now as a Construction Engineer and is out in the field nearly every day. Just last year she was involved in a couple of close calls.  Here are her stories from last summer’s construction season

Working on US 23 concrete patching last summer the crew and I were working in 1 lane (the right lane), with live traffic in the left lane.  We were doing full width patching, meaning the crew was working right on the lane line, and barrels were all that separated us from traffic.  It was night and weekend work, so it was not easy for drivers to see the crew while working at night.  They had set up proper advanced signing, and had lighting in their immediate working areas, but traffic did not obey the work zone speed limits; they were still driving at least 70 mph through the work zone.  Nothing happened to us there, but it was unnerving having cars go by just feet from you at nearly double the posted limits.


One Saturday afternoon there was a woman that was driving distracted who went through the barricades, hit the crew’s concrete equipment and continued driving through the work zone then stopped after she was out of the work zone.  The crew had stepped away from the equipment just a few minutes before she came through, so no one was injured. Someone easily could’ve died if they were standing there working at the time.


When flaggers are on the road and directing 2 way traffic in 1 lane because work is being done in the other lane do not blow past them!  They are there to protect the workers, but they are also there protecting you from running into oncoming traffic.  Or if workers are on the road stopping traffic for a few minutes to back a truck in to a site or pull a truck out it may seem like an inconvenience, but they’re stopping you so the truck doesn’t hit anyone and no one hits the truck.  Make sure everyone gets home safe at the end of the day!  That’s what we always say on site.