National Work Zone Awareness Week

Imagine going to your job every day, you walk into your office made of 28 inch orange safety cones, to work closely with your customers who speed by you in vehicles at 70 mph or more. This is the life of a Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) highway maintenance employee. According to Jerry Stone, TxDOT's Tom Green County Maintenance Section Assistant Supervisor,  “We have a 28-inch cone that we use the majority of the time, and that is our only safety barrier between a vehicle and us, the workers. That’s all the protection we have.”

 If you are driving by the TxDOT offices on Knickerbocker Road you may notice the presence of an abundance orange traffic cones in the yard. These cones represent the 146 lives lost in highway work zone areas last year, and are a grim reminder of why it’s important to obey traffic laws and exercise caution when traveling in work zones. In an effort to raise awareness of the dangers in work zones, TxDOT has created a campaign, “Drive Safe in Work Zones So We All Get Home”.  This coincides with National Work Zone Awareness Week, March 23-27.

 “Work zones are full of all sorts of obstacles. You have narrowing lanes, you have cones, barrels, you have reduced speed limits, uneven pavement, there’s just a whole variety of things that are typical of highway work zones,” said Karen Threlkeld, Public Information Officer, TxDOT, San Angelo District. Threlkeld along with local law enforcement spoke about work zone awareness at a small conference at the TxDOT offices yesterday.

 “The law states if you see flashing blue or amber lights from a TxDOT vehicle, emergency vehicle or tool truck stopped on the roadway, you must move out of the lane closest to the vehicle, and slow down, if possible, to 20 miles below the speed limit,” said Lt. Keith Muncey, Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office. “This is for the safety of the workers and motorists.”

“Our biggest problem in construction zones is failure to control speed,” said Sgt. Korby Kennedy of the San Angelo Police Department. Kennedy reminded drivers that distractions such as cell phones, even in hands free mode, can distract attention from the roadway easily, which as we saw earlier this week on TX 158, can be deadly.

TxDOT and the City of San Angelo are currently working together to improve the roadway and cross walk on N. Bryant and the loop in front of McDonald’s. That area has become used by a high volume pedestrians mostly because of foot traffic coming from Central High School students during their lunch hour. “We are adding pedestrian elements there that we’ve never had before,” said Tracy Cain, District Engineer for TxDOT. “So there will be a protected pedestrian cycle for those kids that walk across to McDonald’s.”

TxDOT will also begin construction on area highways that have seen deterioration due to heavy truck traffic as a result of the oil field boom. Construction is slated for US 67 towards Mertzon, north US 87, and the Houston Hart Expressway from Main St. to US 87 (N. Bryant). The San Angelo District was allotted $30 million for road repair projects such as these by the state through Proposition 1 last year. Karen Threlkeld says that TxDOT will notify the public of these work zones as they come closer to starting construction.