Many industries have their fair share of hazards, but few compare to the dangerous work that linemen face every day. To be a lineman is to accept the inherent risks that come with the job. These utility workers often perform their duties at sometimes extreme heights in adverse weather or at night while they work with electricity or water.

These conditions have led to some shocking statistics from World Metrics about those who work as linemen:

• The fatality rate for lineworkers is nearly 400% higher than the national average for all occupations.
• Over the past decade, an average of 26 linemen lose their lives every year due to fatal work injuries.
• Linemen experience a non-fatal injury rate of 104.6 per 10,000 full-time workers.
• For every lineman fatality, there are approximately 20 non-fatal injuries.
• 61% of fatal injuries among linemen are due to transportation incidents.

Circumstances like this have likely contributed to the utility industry's high turnover rate in recent years. A recent Center for Energy Workforce Development (CEWD) survey reported that turnover has reached an all-time high since 2006.

Many utilities workers in the United States are starting to reach retirement age, which means they are approaching the natural ends of their careers. Technology jobs are starting to emerge in the industry. They're a small portion of the overall workforce at 2.6 percent, but their share has increased 4 times from 2021 to 2023. Data from CEWD suggests that experienced utility workers are leaving their positions to move into these new roles. Additionally, employees may struggle to cope with the physical demands and risks of the job. 

It's a dangerous, but necessary job. Our society is reliant on utilities like electricity and the internet. Most people cannot perform their job responsibilities without them. If either of these utilities are out of service, people demand they be restored as soon as possible — no matter what the circumstances are. Lineworkers are the only people qualified to make that happen. They are required to perform their job duties, no matter how dangerous the task at hand may be. 

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The hazards linemen face every day

In the early days of the industry, nearly one in four linemen succumbed to work-related deaths. Things have drastically changed as the utility industry has evolved — especially in the last 20 years. 

Technological and ergonomic advances have led to more comfortable flame-resistant clothing. Linemen have also seen improvements in rubber-insulating gloves, sleeves, and line blankets. 

As Lineman Central mentioned, increased data and software for tracking energized components and nominal voltages are improving safety protocols and preparation for lineworkers. These advances mean that any "lineman in the field can be provided with the needed information on high-risk areas and repeating problem sections."

But despite these important advancements in utility industry safety, linemen still face the risk of preventable accidents and deaths every day. Here are just some of the hazards that linemen must navigate on a daily basis:  

• Electrocution: This is the biggest and most obvious threat that a lineman faces. Electrocution is the leading cause of death for linemen. 
• Falling from heights: World Metrics states that about 21% of lineman fatalities are due to falls. Lineworkers climb poles or use aerial lifts to perform their duties at heights ranging from 40 to hundreds of feet off the ground. Equipment malfunction, loss of balance and adverse weather conditions can increase a lineman's chance of falling on the job.
• Inadequate cover-up equipment: Cover-up equipment provides linemen with a safe distance from energized parts and equipment, as well as keeping energized conductors away from the grounded surface of poles and cross-arms. The chance of lineman injury or death goes way up when workers need to move their covers during a job. 
• Lack of protection against currents in grounded systems: Grounded systems are not automatically safe just because they are grounded. That is not the case. Utility linemen now undertake more transmission work at greater voltages. The incidences of induction have increased along with the voltages. OSHA Outreach Courses says "In grounded systems, induction creates a circulating current, which is how electric current has become a major risk for linemen."
• Inadequate PPE: PPE is crucial for all linemen, but it needs to be effective for whatever the task at hand is. Inadequate PPE causes a large proportion of accidents in the utility industry. The right PPE can very well be the difference between life and death for a lineman. 
• Working alongside the road: Distracted driving remains a significant problem for lineworkers. Even with physical barriers and signage in place, they're at constant risk for near misses and struck-by collisions. 

Distracted driving is a significant threat to linemen

Drivers on the road are operating their vehicles in dangerously distracted states of mind. They're texting, singing along to songs on the radio, or eating a quick breakfast while they attempt to drive. Their vehicles provide some distractions as well. Gear shifts and in-vehicle infotainment centers have become more complicated and distracting. They have the potential to take a driver’s eyes off the road for just a few seconds and lead to a potential collision with a job site.

Collisions due to distracted driving is a risk for linemen when they work alongside city, residential, and rural streets. These roads — especially rural ones — often include bends and hills. Those locations may be where a lineman’s work site is situated. If a person is driving mindlessly and a little too fast down those roads, they won't have time to react when a utility job site seemingly comes out of nowhere. Lineworkers conduct their work on tall poles. If a driver collides with that pole when a worker is on it, the worker will likely be knocked to the ground and suffer potentially tragic consequences.

Move Over laws were created to prevent collisions such as these. They 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. Utility job sites are protected by Move Over laws in every state and Washington, D.C. 

States are continuously expanding and improving Move Over laws to make them more effective. 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.

While these laws mark a significant milestone in roadway safety for the utility industry, challenges still persist. Motorists are still driving distracted and work zone crashes 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. 

The implications of a utility work site collision are felt across that community. If a lineman is injured, there are hospital bills, workers' compensation, and short or long term disability to be paid. Linework is highly-specialized, which makes it harder to recruit people to temporarily replace injured workers. If a truck is damaged during a collision, those are incredibly costly to replace. 

In the worst cases scenario, people are killed and a beloved family member and friend is lost. 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. 

Linemen's stories from the job 

These aforementioned hazards are no exaggeration. Real people face circumstances like adverse weather conditions, angry community members, falls, and distracted driving every day. For example, Indiana lineman Erick Trice has worked through three ice storms and two tornadoes to repair infrastructure and get power flowing again. In July of 2024, he was called to Houston to help restore power following Hurricane Beryl. He told the Texas Tribune that his day would start at 6 am and end 16 hours later, with just a short break during the day.

“We’re in storm mode, and we just keep going,” he told KTRE 9. “You get in that hotel, you take a shower and you pass out, and your alarm clock wakes you up, and you get back up and go.” It's an exhausting job and Trice has felt the frustration from community members as a result. 

Don Johnson with Trinity Valley Electric Cooperative has echoed the same thoughts. As a Texas lineman, he's very familiar with the dangers of restoring power. In June 2024, a lineman in the nearby town of Rusk lost both his arms from electrocution. Johnson also has experience balancing those dangers with community's frustration about those outages.

“Power line work is very specialized, has very specialized tools and very specialized equipment and along with the system operators the linemen in the field have very specific protocols in the field to go through in order to make sure that the line can be safely energized,” he said.

People are so reliant on having constant access to power that some opt to install their own generators. But improperly installed generators can be incredibly dangerous to anyone who goes near it. 

“Anytime someone from the public tries to operate and get into that system without all those proper safety protocols, it has the potential to be extremely dangerous, damage power line equipment and cause problems for everyone,” Johnson said.

Digital alerting protects linemen before drivers reach their job sites

One of the biggest dangers that linemen in the utility industry face is distracted drivers speeding down the road and colliding with their equipment and/or employees. Advanced warning to drivers from a digital alerting system can help to mitigate that risk. 

A digital alerting system is an electronic notification sent directly to a driver. Any alerting vehicle or asset can be equipped with these systems. This technology can often seamlessly integrate with software solutions that utility crews already use.

These digital alerts inform drivers that there is a nearby or upcoming hazard, such as a lineman working along the road, and they need to slow down and move over. Drivers receive these alerts through compatible in-vehicle infotainment centers and through leading navigation apps like Waze.

Alerts are sent up to 30 seconds before drivers come into contact with a hazard in the road. That 30 seconds of advanced warning means that a driver could see an alert up to half a mile from a work zone. 

Analog alerting tools on their own are no longer enough to catch a driver's attention early and effectively. Linemen who take proper precaution with these tools still face constant risk of near misses and struck-by collisions. Digital alerts cut through the noise and meet drivers where they are with visual and auditory alerts. Advanced warning systems like Safety Cloud® by HAAS Alert have been proven to mitigate the risks associated with distracted driving.

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.”

Nathaniel Smith, Choptank Electric Cooperative’s Manager of Safety, Training, and Compliance, is all too familiar with this risk. The poles his organization install, service, and maintain provide electricity to 56,000 residential, commercial, and industrial metered accounts. Choptank Electric is a mainstay for energy in eastern Maryland, but has also expanded its services into a new initiative — installing fiber optic Wi-Fi for their members.

In 2023, Choptank Electric’s sister company experienced a heartbreaking fatality on the road. While working on fiber optic cables, an employee in a splicers trailer was rear-ended and killed. The employee had taken the proper steps to set up cones around the trailer, but it wasn’t enough to catch the driver’s attention.

At that point in time, Choptank Electric was changing 80-100 poles a week, which previously added up to about six months of work for the company. As more work equaled an increase in risk for his linemen, Nathaniel needed a new tool to keep his team safer on the job. Download the case study, “Choptank Electric Cooperative + Safety Cloud: Protecting Utility Workers on the Road” to learn why Nathaniel decided Safety Cloud was the right tool for Choptank Electric.