(Radio Iowa) – The Transportation Commission has approved rules to allow vehicles not owned and operated by the state to use flashing white warning lights in work zones. The D-O-T’s Dave Lorenzen, says state law governs the color of lights used. “The reason is they want to make sure that the public is given kind of a consistent pattern of what this color of light means with this type of vehicle. We all know when there is a blue and a red light flashing on a light bar that it is either a fire, E-M-S, or law enforcement vehicle,” Lorenzen says.

He says the law was changed to allow the D-O-T vehicles to use the flashing white lights and the rule change expands that to non-D-O-T vehicles. He says the white will be used by the D-O-T on the back of special trailers towed in work zones to warn drivers they are getting into a dangerous situation. They won’t be on all the time. “We don’t want to create a lackadaisical view where everything looks the same all the time. We need to be able to draw the motorist’s attention to the fact that these are flashing for a reason — you need to slow down, you are getting in the wrong lane or whatever,” he says.

Lorenzen says the lights will give contractors another tool to use to try and keep them safe. “We’re constantly looking at ways we can make our vehicles more identifiable, people can react in a reasonable manner and distance so we don’t have those incidents,” Lorenzen says. He says it’s unfortunate they have to keep spending money on safety features when drivers could easily do it.”The best solution for us would be is if folks would put their phones down and really pay close attention when they are approaching and driving those work zones — because it is not a normal flow of traffic,” according to Lorenzen. “That traffic queue and speeds can change very quickly, and quite frankly those secondary crashes sometimes are more severe than the intial crash.”

Lorenzen says the contractors will be able to decide how they can use the lights to make their work zones safer.