Risk is synonymous with utility work. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the utility industry faced an average of 25.6 fatalities a year from 2016 to 2020. Injuries are even more common, as Urbint says, "the incidence rate for nonfatal injuries in utility system construction, for example, was 73.6 per 10,000 full-time workers in 2020 alone."

Utility workers often have to perform their duties in adverse weather conditions or at night while working with electricity or water. Sometimes, they perform this work while high up on a pole. They have to balance these inherent risks with the following hazards: 

• Electrocution: This is the biggest and most obvious threat to a utility worker. It  is the leading cause of death for linemen. Utility workers face this threat from grounded systems, too. OSHA Outreach Courses says "In grounded systems, induction creates a circulating current, which is how electric current has become a major risk for linemen."
• Falling from heights: Falls account for 21% of linemen fatalities, as they have to climb poles or use aerial lifts to perform their duties at heights ranging from 40 to hundreds of feet off the ground.
• Inadequate cover-up equipment: Proper cover-up equipment provides utility workers a safe distance from energized parts and equipment. When a utility worker doesn't have that, it could very well lead to injury or death.

Finally, distracted driving remains a significant problem for all utility workers. The motoring public is driving more distracted than ever and does not notice utility job sites along the road until it's too late. Even with physical barriers, signage in place, and police presence, utility workers are at constant risk for near misses and struck-by collisions due to distracted driving. 

Lack of road safety puts utility workers at risk

Drivers on the road are more distracted than ever. They're texting, singing along to songs on the radio, eating a quick breakfast on the road, and more. 

Cars themselves offer distractions, too. Gear shifts and in-vehicle infotainment centers have become more complicated and distracting, meaning a driver may have to take their eyes off the road for just a few seconds too long to change or adjust something.

When that happens, a driver might not notice a utility job site on the side of the road until it's too late. This leads to a tragic number of roadside worker deaths and injuries every year. It's an issue that the National Safety Council and OSHA have been urgently working to find a solution for.

“Transportation incidents continue to be one of the leading causes of death among America’s workers. Understanding the risks of distracted driving is critical to protecting not only workers while on the road but those around them,” said Doug Parker, assistant secretary of labor for OSHA.

Move Over laws were created to help prevent tragic collisions such as these. These laws require drivers to slow down and move over to allow safe clearance to emergency personnel, roadside workers, and other incidents and hazards on the road. Every state and Washington, D.C., has their own version of Move Over laws. Roadside utility job sites are protected under these laws in every state.

Additionally, states are continuously expanding and improving Move Over laws through expansions like 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.

But despite these positive strides in roadway safety, challenges still persist. Motorists are still driving distracted and preventable collisions or near misses with utility workers continue. Move Over laws paired with analog alerting systems like high-visibility clothing, cones, and message boards are not enough on their own to keep utility workers safe as they work along the road. The National Safety Council says that 891 people were killed and 37,701 people were injured in work zone crashes in 2022. 

Utility workers on city, residential, and rural roads face these risks. These roads — especially rural ones — often include bends and hills. A utility job site may be situated at one of those locations. If a person is driving mindlessly and a little too fast down those roads, they won't have time to react when a work zone seemingly comes out of nowhere. 

The implications of these crashes are tragic and ripple across a community. If an employee is injured, there are hospital bills, workers' compensation, and short or long term disability to be paid. Utility work is a highly-specialized job, which makes it harder to recruit people to temporarily replace injured workers on leave. If a truck is damaged during a collision, those are incredibly costly to replace. 

In the worst cases scenario, people are killed in these collisions. When that happens, utility companies have to deal with the worst consequence of all — telling a utility worker's family they will not be coming home. 

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Distracted driving kills and injures utility workers

Utility workers face constant risk of injury or death due to distracted and/or negligent drivers. Nathaniel Smith, Manager of Safety, Training, and Compliance at Choptank Electric Cooperative, is all too familiar with this issue.

As reported in our case study, Choptank Electric’s sister company experienced a heartbreaking fatality on the road in 2023. While working on fiber optic cables, an employee in a splicers trailer was rear-ended and killed. Even though cones were set up around the trailer, it wasn’t enough to catch the driver’s attention.

At that point in time, Choptank Electric was changing 80-100 poles a week. That previously added up to about six months of work for the company. A lot of the poles the company worked on required employees to operate heavy machinery on the side of the road in all kinds of conditions — anything from dangerous, high-traffic roadways to country roads with sharp turns and low lines of sight. So while Choptank did not directly experience the loss of an employee, it still sent Nathaniel on a journey to find a solution to better protect his team on the road. 

Tragedies like the one Choptank Electric’s sister company experienced happen around the country. A police officer and utility worker with National Grid in the Boston area were killed in December 2023 after a man operating a stolen police cruiser crashed into a roadside work zone. Two other utility workers were injured in the hit-and-run crash as well.

"Clearly what happened today is an unimaginable tragedy," Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan told CBS News. "These two men were doing their job at 4 o'clock in the afternoon when they were killed and crashes like this happen far too often." 

Joe Garcia, a fellow National Grid employee, called the situation tragic. "This is what we have to deal with as utility workers and police officers. I just pray for the families," he said. "The job itself for the utility workers is we're always in traffic areas. You guys see us every day out there. You guys know what it is. Just slow down, people. I don't know what exactly happened, they're still doing the investigations."

A similarly devastating accident occurred on the White Horse Pike in South Jersey in May of 2024. Multiple New Jersey American Water employees were struck in a three-vehicle crash at their job site. One employee was pronounced dead at the scene while others were injured. This stretch of highway is so dangerous that local authorities launched a $400,000 state-funded effort to significantly reduce the number of preventable accidents along the road.

Utility workers need better protections on the road

Utility workers handle dangerous elements and often work from great heights. When it comes to utility industry safety, the stakes are high. Creating a strong safety culture is key to protecting these employees. But safety in the utility industry shouldn't just be about PPE and OSHA standards. These processes and protocols should prioritize the entire well being of each of your crew members.

Utility companies should take a human-centered approach to safety

Human-centered safety refers to a method that evaluates and improves safety in the utility industry in ways that go beyond protection from hazards. Utility company employees are people first and workers second. 

As Utility Dive says: “Unlike the systems they work on daily, the workers who repair and maintain electrical, gas and plumbing systems aren’t commodities that serve a single purpose. They’re humans who have lives and families outside of work, who want to [make contributions] to their community, and [want to] continually learn in order to do their jobs more effectively.” 

This approach prioritizes the contributions and values of each employee, along with reducing  the physical and mental toll of utility work. Here are some necessary skills and actions for utility leaders to take to promote human-centered safety among employees:

• Ask the right questions
• Listen to employees concerns and respond appropriately 
• Lead difficult conversations that lead to positive outcomes
• Build relationships with employees based on trust 
• Demonstrate empathy 

This method can help you to implement better procedures and protocols on the job to better protect utility workers. For example, not all hazards are equal. Assess each task that your workers may carry out at a job site and list out all possible hazards to create a proper risk assessment. This can help create a culture of safety, demonstrate your commitment to your employees’ well being, and prevent accidents and injuries. 

Also, if any employees come to you with concerns about near-misses and potential struck-by collisions on the road, listen to them. It's distracting and pretty scary to try and do your job with traffic whizzing by you. Utility workers deserve better protective measures. Implementing a digital alerting system is a great way to meet that demand.

Digital alerting can reduce the risk of collision by 90 percent

A digital alert is an electronic notification sent directly to a driver. Any flashing lights vehicle or asset, whether it’s a utility worker, line crew, first responder, or any roadway worker, can be equipped with this technology. These notifications inform drivers that there is a nearby or upcoming hazard, such as a lineman working on the side of the road, and they need to slow down and move over.

Alerts are sent up to 30 seconds before drivers come into contact with a hazard in the road. Drivers receive these alerts through compatible in-vehicle infotainment centers and through leading navigation apps like Waze.

Analog alerting tools like cones and message boards on their own are no longer enough to catch a driver's attention early and effectively. Motorists are often operating their vehicles distracted and don’t see those barriers until it’s too late.

Digital alerts cut through the noise and meet drivers where they are with visual and auditory messages. Advanced warning systems like Safety Cloud by HAAS Alert® have been proven to mitigate the risks to first responders and roadway workers associated with distracted driving.

HAAS Alert's Tom Parbs told the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) 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.”

Researchers have conducted studies to support this. 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 worth of observation, the study determined that queue trucks with digital alerting decreased hard braking events by 80 percent. 

Parbs went on to tell ARTBA that when HAAS Alert tells Waze, a Stellantis vehicle, or a Volkswagen vehicle that a utility worker is stopped on the side of the road, there is no question that drivers will be alerted to their presence. 

“That is a 100 percent ground truth because we know where workers are every second within three feet of accuracy,” he said.

Download the Safety Cloud for Utility guide today to learn more about how digital alerting will protect utility workers from distracted driving.