Work zone safety is no joke. Recent reports state that nearly half of America’s deadliest jobs are in construction. Construction Dive reported that 12 of the 25 most dangerous jobs, as measured by the rate of people who die at work, are in the construction industry. Among those jobs were roofers, ironworkers, crane operators and highway maintenance workers.

Building and maintaining roads, bridges, and tunnels comes with its own unique hazards. Work zones are necessary for creating, maintaining, and upgrading the country's infrastructure, but they can unintentionally be a recipe for chaos. As the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) says, "work zones are characterized by traffic pattern changes, narrowed rights-of-way, the presence of construction workers, and work vehicles frequently entering and leaving construction areas." These activities can result in crashes, injuries, and fatalities.

Work zone fatalities have been on the rise in recent years. ATSSA has reported that roadway work zone fatalities jumped 11 percent between 2020 and 2021 — that means deaths have gone up from 863 to 956. Roadway worker fatalities did slightly go down in that time period, though, going from 117 deaths 108.

But less deaths does not mean the problem has been solved. 

“While we are pleased that 2021 saw fewer worker deaths than the year before, no death is acceptable,” ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner said. “Our goal is zero deaths on our roadways, both inside and outside of work zones.”

When it comes to work zone safety, there's a lot left to be desired. But in order to better protect the construction crews working at these job sites, it's important to recognize and understand the hazards they face every day. 

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What are the challenges of construction work zone safety?

Designing and implementing a safe work zone is a complex challenge. You have to work with a reputable traffic company for guidance for designing traffic flow disruptions, detours, road hazards, and speed and lane changes. At the same time, worker, driver, and pedestrian safety must be prioritized. Finally, you have to communicate the timing, detours, and delays associated with this new work zone. 

These unpredictable circumstances can lead to a number of different work zone challenges. For one, developing consistent and standardized work zone designs can be a struggle.

If you’re working to improve safety across all your work zones, creating repeatable processes and specifications is essential. While this step is crucial, it may require significant time and testing for your team to perfect.

Maximizing work zone visibility is equally important, but similarly challenging.  Drivers are operating their vehicles more distracted than ever. So if they come upon a work zone they didn’t realize would be there, that causes a safety hazard for all parties involved. As 3M says, a work zone presents a load of new information to a driver. If they’re suddenly confronted with unfamiliar conditions and unexpected changes, they only have a matter of seconds to react. That situation can lead to a tragic, and sometimes deadly, outcome.  

Distracted driving can end in work zone collisions 

Drivers are more distracted than ever. They text, eat breakfast on the road, fiddle with the radio, and more. The cars themselves can be distracting, too. Modern gear shifts and in-vehicle infotainment centers have become more complicated, potentially taking a driver’s eyes off the road for just a few seconds too long. Distracted driving and speeding in work zones can lead to tragic consequences.

Move Over laws were created to prevent these kinds of collisions. They require drivers to slow down and move over to flashing lights, and especially in Work Zones. Every state, along with Washington, D.C., has their own version of Move Over laws that protect road workers. 

States are continually pushing initiatives to improve Move Over Laws and make them more effective at improving roadway safety. These expansions can include increased fines and harsher penalties, increased efforts in community education, and broader definitions for the vehicles and incidents that drivers should Slow Down and Move Over for.

However, drivers are still operating vehicles distracted and work zone collisions continue to persist. The National Safety Council says that 891 people were killed and 37,701 people were injured in work zone crashes in 2022. 

Construction crews often have to do road maintenance on busy highways. Unpredictable weather conditions and changing traffic patterns make those work zones incredibly dangerous. In May of 2024, the Association of General Contractors said that sixty-four percent of highway contractors report that motor vehicles crashed into their construction work zones during the past year.

“Bad driving behavior and lax work zone safety laws don’t just put construction workers at greater risk,” said Jeffrey Shoaf, Chief Executive Officer of Association of General Contractors. “Our new data shows that drivers and their passengers are in even greater danger from highway work zone crashes.”

The implications of these crashes are felt across the community. If an employee is injured, there are hospital bills, workers' compensation, and short or long term disability to be paid. If a vehicle or equipment is damaged during a collision, repair expenses can quickly add up. 

In the worst cases scenario, people are killed in these collisions. When that happens, construction companies face the most tragic consequence of all — informing a construction worker's family that their loved one will  not be coming home. 

Real stories from the road

Most people don’t have to worry about their safety at work. But when it comes to a construction crew, a work zone on a roadway often serves as their office. Their safety depends on so many factors — message boards, orange barrels, attenuators and other visual alerts. Unfortunately, these measures aren’t always enough to keep construction crew members safe on the job. 

For example, in May of 2024 the state of Michigan reported that work zone crashes have started to spike over the past year. In 2023, the state saw 7,237 work zone crashes, resulting in 1,896 work zone injuries and 17 fatal work zone crashes.

In fact, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT)  and the state police have begun working more closely together to enforce work zone speed limits more stringently and bring awareness to the dangers of speeding in and around work zones.

“We are seeing a number of motorists speeding through these construction areas and it’s unsafe for the motorists and for the workers that have to work under these conditions every day,” Michigan State Police Sgt. Ashley Miller told the Petoskey News-Review. 

Brad Swanson, MDOT Construction Engineer, stressed the importance of drivers paying attention around work zones, as people’s lives are at stake. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) dealt with similarly tragic circumstances in April of 2024. WSDOT crews dealt with eight crashes in just one week. As KOMO News reported, four of those crashes happened on a Monday, then another crash happened early the next day, injuring a driver. Three more happened in just an hour on that Friday.

WSDOT told KOMO News the number of fatal crashes in work zones doubled last year compared to 2022. Ten crashes in 2022 were fatal. Officials said many of those crashes are preventable.

“In the top three factors of the collisions are following too closely excessive speed, and then inattention or distracted driving,” WSDOT Spokesperson Aisha Dayal said. “Again, they’re all things that the public can avoid and that are preventable, including not driving impaired.”

Work zone safety tips for mitigating the risk from distracted driving

There will always be an element of risk for construction workers on the road. But there are ways to mitigate unnecessary risk. Here are tips for keeping construction crews safer on the road. 

• Develop a traffic control plan — Every road construction project needs a plan to facilitate the safe flow of vehicles around and in a construction zone. The Department of Transportation says the most temporary traffic control plans are divided into four areas: an advanced warning area, a transition area, an activity area, and a termination area.
• Create a site-specific safety program — Each road construction project comes with its own unique hazards. As Construct Connect says, start off the job by identifying all hazards and create plans to control and mitigate them. Regularly schedule inspections of all equipment and materials and create a specialized plan for first aid and emergency medical care in the event of an accident.
• Enforce speed reductions — Negligent driving poses great risks to construction crews working along the road. You need to implement and strictly enforce reduced speed limits in work zones. As Alliant says, "Use speed cameras and radar feedback signs to monitor and manage vehicle speeds, ensuring drivers comply with the reduced limits."
• Start each work day with a safety meeting — The more familiar they become with a job site, the easier it is for workers to get comfortable and become less vigilant about work zone safety. Start each day off with a safety meeting to offer regular training that ensures all workers are aware of best practices and emergency procedures.
• Encourage workers to stay hydrated — Asphalt absorbs 95% of the sun’s rays, which means the temperature of asphalt can easily reach 30° F or higher than the surrounding air temperature. That can easily lead to heat-related illnesses among construction crews. Encourage workers to drink plenty of liquids and take breaks to get out of the heat when possible.
• Implement a digital alert system — These systems send electronic notifications that notify civilian drivers of an upcoming hazard, such as a job site along the side of the road, and prompt them to slow down and move over. 

Learn how to improve safety culture in construction through digital alerting 

A digital alert system is an electronic notification sent directly to a driver. These alerts inform drivers that there is a nearby or upcoming hazard, such as a construction job site on the side of the road, and they need to slow down and move over.

Analog alerting tools, like high-visibility vests and cones, on their own are no longer enough to catch a driver's attention early enough. But digital alerts cut through the noise to effectively meet drivers where they are with visual and audible alerts. Advanced warning systems like Safety Cloud by HAAS Alert® have been proven to mitigate the risks associated with distracted driving.

Any alerting vehicle or asset can be equipped with Safety Cloud digital alerting. The technology can even be activated through tools that construction crews likely already use, like Wanco or SolarTech equipment.

Equipped vehicles or assets immediately send alerts as soon as their lights are activated. Drivers receive them up to 30 seconds before they come into contact with a roadway hazard. The motoring public receives these alerts through compatible in-vehicle infotainment centers and through leading navigation apps like Waze.

If a motorist is operating their car at a faster speed, these alerts can reach them up to a half-mile up from the work zone. That gives drivers more than enough time and space to slow down and move over.

HAAS Alert's Tom Parbs told the American Road & Transportation Builders Association that driving and talking on the phone “is the equivalent of operating a vehicle with a .08 blood alcohol content.”

“The motoring public likes to multitask,” he added. “These alerts disrupt the distractions. They make people aware 30 seconds before the traditional advanced warning area of a work zone.”

Recent studies have backed up the effectiveness of digital alerting. In 2021, Purdue University published a study to measure the impact of digital alerting-equipped queue warning trucks on hard-braking events. The goal was to discover if warning drivers of upcoming work zones earlier through digital alerting would reduce hard braking events on highways. 

Researchers used 19 queue trucks equipped with Safety Cloud digital alerts. After 3 months of research and 370 hours of observation, the study determined that queue trucks with digital alerting decreased hard braking events by 80 percent. 

Civilian vehicles are becoming more advanced every year, meaning they’re becoming better equipped to receive alerts like these. The more construction crews that implement this technology, the more that the lifesaving message to slow down and move for work zone crews will get out there. 

Want to learn more about how to improve safety cultures in your job sites with digital alerting? Get your copy of Safety Cloud for Work Zones to learn more about how this technology puts the brakes on distracted driving. 

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