WSDOT is in the middle of Work Zone Safety Awareness Week as it tries to reinforce their message to drivers to be safe while traveling through construction zones in Washington state. Washington averages almost 1,000 highway work zone injuries each year. Since 1950, nearly 60 workers have been killed in work zones statewide.
“You talk to any of our maintenance people, you talk to any of our incident response people, and they’ll tell you that a rare day goes by when they don’t have some type of a close call out there. So we’re needing people to pay attention on those roadways, especially when they’re around work zones,” WSDOT spokesperson Mike Allende said. “All of our workers are out there really wanting to get everybody out there safely and taking care of those roads and we really their help to have all of those people go home to their families safely.”
In 2015 alone there were more than 1,600 collisions in Washington state work zones. Nine led to deaths, and there were more than 500 injuries.
“The three biggest causes of collisions in work zones are inattentive driving, driving too fast, and also following too closely. And all of those things are really easily preventable by just slowing down, paying attention, being aware of where you are,” Allende said. “So we all have the ability to control those situations if we just pay more attention.”
WSDOT advises that people slow down to the posted speed and pay attention and merge as soon as possible when traveling through a work zone. They also say drivers need to expect delays and plan for them by leaving early or using an alternate route if one is available.
“We really need people, regardless of the age, to pay attention,” Allende said. “Keep the phones out of reach and really focus on the road.”
In 2015, as expected, King County had the most work zone collisions with more than 600. Pierce County was second with more than 300.
“King County has the most number of drivers, we have the most population density here so when you get that many people together out on a highway you're going to see more and more collisions, more and more chances for people to work into those work zones and cause some collisions,” Allende added.
WSDOT will hold their “Worker Memorial” event in Olympia Wednesday where they will pay respects to the employees who have died in construction zones in the state.
