Road construction workers, state police and transportation officials want drivers to pay more attention on the highways.
“We're literally feet away from cars every day, so we’ve just got to make sure that people just slow down and move over,” said Alfredo A. Cisneros Jr., a highway maintainer with the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Cisneros, who works out of IDOT’s Bridge Operations Yard in East Peoria, says he’s experienced some close calls in his 10 years of doing road work.
“Plenty of them. Even just getting out of the vehicle sometimes is a little bit scary, because vehicles are driving so fast and getting pretty close,” he said. “We have to swing open a door trying to step out, and we could have a slip or fall and land in front of traffic. We've also had a vehicle or trailer hit one time, just because people aren't paying attention, zoning out and just driving.”
IDOT marked National Work Zone Awareness Week on Tuesday, calling attention to the risks workers face as the road construction season swings into gear. Kensil Garnett, IDOT Region 3 Engineer, noted that work zone crashes caused 24 fatalities in 2023.
“On average, we continue to see almost 6,000 work zone crashes every year in Illinois resulting in more than 1,600 injuries. We can and we must do better,” Garnett said. “The only acceptable number of deaths must be zero.”
In stressing the theme of the awareness week – “Work zones are temporary. Actions behind the wheel can last forever” – Garnett also noted that April is Distracted Driving Month, and reminded people to obey “Scott’s Law,” which requires motorists to change lanes when a police or emergency vehicle is on the shoulder with its lights flashing.
“Our friends with the Illinois State Police continue to experience great heartache and pain due to people either being unwilling or unaware of the need to slow down and move over for stopped vehicles at the side of the road,” Garnett said. "It's got to stop and it's got to stop now."
Cisneros said he’s noticed distracted driving become more of an issue as newer cars feature more technological options.
“Especially with the vehicles that have big screens and stuff. Just people looking over, touching that screen and trying to change their XM radio or whatever,” he said. “They get very distracted very quickly, and things can just pop up so quickly (when) vehicles are moving so fast. It just takes a couple seconds just to be distracted and you’re in an accident really quickly.”
Illinois State Police Troop 4 Master Sergeant Bryan Clauson said updated speed enforcement vans are being deployed near work zones throughout the state.
“These fully marked photo enforcement vans are equipped with the latest in photo radar technology designed to record the speeds of vehicles and capture clear images of the driver and the license plate,” said Clauson, noting fines for moving violations in work zones are increased. “In addition to the photo vans, ISP will continue deploying officers to construction zones to monitor traffic flow, identify drivers who disobey the speed limit, and violate other applicable laws.”
Dane Simpson represents Local 165 of the Great Plains Laborers, which represents 10,000 construction workers in north-central Illinois. He urges drivers to remember that construction zones are their members’ workplaces.
“We want to make sure that they're able to get home to their families at the end of a workday in a safe manner,” Simpson said. “When there's an incident in a work zone at 45 mph, the likeliness of a fatality of that incident is 52%. As those speeds increase, the fatality rates also increase.”
Cisneros said the biggest key to work zone safety is for drivers to remain attentive and avoid driving too fast.
“Just be aware. Be aware of what's going on around you, be aware of what's going on ahead of you,” Cisneros said. “Slow down when you see vehicles on the side of the road or working on the road. That's just the biggest key, is just slowing down. I believe that would probably be the safest thing for everybody.”
