MASON CITY — It’s National Work Zone Awareness Week, with this year’s theme being “Respect The Zone So We All Get Home”.
Pete Hjelmstad with the Iowa Department of Transportation says work zone safety has always been a high priority at the Iowa DOT. “It’s obviously really good timing because this is when so many projects are getting going, you are starting to see work zones all over the country, especially in the Midwest. Be ready for them. Be prepared to know that just on the other side of those cones are workers, people out in the open.”
Hjelmstad says you should abide by the signs posted in and around work zones, especially mobile-type work zones that are moving and working on patching the road. “Get over in the other lane when you are told to, don’t wait to merge, and make sure you’re through the work zone before you pull back into the other lane. On the major work zones, you’re going to see an ‘end road work’ sign that will let you know. On some of those moving operations where they are out filling potholes or patching different spots or doing crack filling, we call them mobile work zones or moving work zones. That’s where you have to watch. Just make sure you are past all the equipment before you move over.”
19 DOT employees have been killed in the line of duty in a work zone since 1953. The latest was last May, when a maintenance employee out of the DOT’s Neola garage was fatally injured when he was struck by a motorist in a work zone on Interstate 80 near Council Bluffs.
