Best Safety Practices in Highway Work Zones

Construction zones are dangerous for workers for a selection of reasons, from close proximity to traffic to the dangers of working with heavy apparatus. Employees in these areas face many various perils each working day. Luckily , there are several steps that may be taken to protect workers, whether they’re in a slow-traffic urban area or working on a highway.

Such a large amount of different studies have been done that show how effective dynamic speed display signs are. These types of tests have been done both by groups wishing to test the usefulness of driver feedback signs and communities that have installed them in hope of wonderful results and then tracked the results to find the signs worked well.

Precise construction zone tests have been done that show the signs work better than other methods like transient rumble strips, visible radar detectors and even on-site police presence. The lit traffic signs are instantly familiar to drivers as official traffic markers, so they take notice. The feedback of their precise speed also prompts drivers to slow down, often when they are not even speeding.

There’s little question that these signs have a traffic slowing effect in construction zones, particularly where many if not most accidents have a tendency to happen—in the transition zone leading in to the particular working area.

The transition zone where traffic approaches at the area’s standard speed and must start slowing down to meet the speed limit for the work section is one of the most unsafe places in a highway working area. That is because approaching traffic will begin to slow at different points in the zone. Some will see the area and begin slowing very far ahead, while others will maintain a higher speed until they’re just about to the center of the sector where more workers are present.

Because some drivers slow later, traffic is in general much faster here than in any other part of the work zone. If a road worker is struck in this zone by faster moving traffic, the chance of serious injury and death is obviously far higher.

The speed display signs made by trafficalmsystems.com are a very important addition to the other work zone safety measures already in place.