(Radio Iowa) – This is National Work Zone Awareness week and the Iowa D-O-T is participating with their counterparts across the country. D-O-T Work Zone Operations Engineer Brian Worrel says the driver behind the wheel is the biggest factor in being safe. “Driver behavior really is the key to safety when you’re approaching these and driving through these work zones, because you never know what’s going to happen. So we want you to be aware, expect the unexpected,” Worrel says.
He says there are already 180 active work zones across the state. “The number one cause of the crashes in our work zones are rear-end crashes where somebody’s not paying attention and the traffic’s slowing down in front of them. And so they run into the vehicle in front of them. That’s by far the most common occurrence,” he says.
Worrel says don’t tailgate other drivers and follow the new hands free cellphone law.
“We’re really happy to see that went into effect, and we’re watching the numbers. It’s a little bit too early to tell exactly what effect it will have overall on crashes throughout the state, but we’re hoping for a positive trend on that,” he says. “Yeah, absolutely, put your phone down, put your devices down.” “The last five years, we’ve had over 35-hundred work zone crashes throughout the state. And fortunately, only 26 of those have caused fatalities, but that means that in those 26 crashes, there were 30 people that didn’t walk away from that,” Worrel says.
“And so we really want to stress and emphasize the safety aspect of this. We’re all in this together. We’re trying to get through it. We’re trying to make the system better for everybody to use, but we need everybody to cooperate and play together nicely.” Worrel says you can check the 5-1-1 site to see where the construction zones are before you head out. He says the 5-1-1 system does integrate with other navigating apps, such as Google Maps or Apple Maps, that you use and they can tell when there are slowdowns or when construction zones are ahead.
