Construction Law

Highway Construction Safety Tips Part 1 featured image

Highway Construction Safety Tips Part 1

If you are supervising a highway construction project, you know that no time of day is entirely safe. The late evenings are filled with pitch-black hours resulting in motorists traveling with low visibility. Daytime projects often mean that the work zone is crowded and surrounded by heavily congested traffic. Along with being mindful of motorists, there are also a myriad of health and safety concerns within the highway work zone itself. In this comprehensive four-part article, the Broward contractor attorneys of Cotney Construction Law will educate you on several important issues related to construction safety on highways.

The Statistics for Work Zone Fatalities

Before we delve into the preventive measures related to highway work zone safety, lets first review some important statistics related to work-related highway construction deaths:

  • According the the Bureau of Labor Statistics, around 20,000 construction workers are injured each year working on highway and street construction projects. From 2003 to 2015, 1,571 workers were killed working on a highway or roadside construction work zone. This averages out to approximately 121 fatalities annually. Over the last 15 years, Texas and Florida have experienced the most roadside construction deaths in the United States.   
  • According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), from 2003 to 2015, 68 percent of the deaths in work zones were construction laborers, truck drivers, construction equipment operators, construction supervisors, extraction workers, and highway maintenance workers. Construction professionals from the private sector accounted for approximately 60 percent of these work-related fatalities.    
  • According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 2011 to 2015, 73 percent of work zone fatalities were transportation incidents. In 61 percent of these cases, a worker was struck by a vehicle in the work zone. The vehicles that accounted for the most transportation deaths from most-to-fewest were the following: trucks, SUVs, semi-trucks, automobiles, machinery, and dump trucks. Backing vehicles accounted for over 20 percent of these deaths.

If you are interested in learning more about highway construction safety, please read sections two, three, and four of this series.  

If you would like to speak with a Broward contractor attorney, please contact us today.

 

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article is for general educational information only. This information does not constitute legal advice, is not intended to constitute legal advice, nor should it be relied upon as legal advice for your specific factual pattern or situation.