A Roller Operator and a Work Crew Foreman Died When They Were Struck by a Motorist in a Highway Work Zone

A 57-year-old asphalt roller operator and a 35-year-old crew foreman died on November 23, 1999, from multiple traumatic injuries received when they were struck by a light pickup truck traveling at a high rate of speed through a construction work zone. At the time of the incident, the victims were part of a six-man paving crew that had just begun laying an asphalt median crossover in the initial stages of a major construction project on a divided highway. Both the foreman and the operator were standing at the west side of a paving machine that was positioned in the median at the inside edge of the inside southbound lane. The 17-year-old driver of a light pickup truck traveling southbound in the inside lane at a high rate of speed allegedly looked down to adjust the radio and veered across the edge line, striking and killing both workers.

Oklahoma Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (OKFACE) investigators concluded that to prevent similar occurrences:

• Employers should consider all applicable elements of a traffic control management program in accordance with the degree of risk to personnel in a work zone.
• Employers should consider affecting temporary lane closures when high-risk operations must be performed, particularly during periods of high traffic volume.
• Employers should consider deploying flaggers and/or traffic monitors when high-risk operations must be engaged, particularly for short periods of time when the use of barriers is not practical.
• Employers should use a particularly high-visibility device at the beginning of road channelizing demarcation to increase the visibility of the impending hazard.
• Employers should develop and implement a formal occupational health and safety management system that is focused on continual improvement.
• Authorities with local jurisdiction for traffic control should consider deploying photo radar and red light camera enforcement programs in, or random assignment of traffic control officers to, construction projects with high traffic volume areas involving high-risk operations.

Local authorities should consider increased use of public information campaigns to increase public awareness of the hazards to both work zone personnel and drivers, particularly for construction projects in areas of high traffic volume.