Error processing SSI filePolice decoys urged to protect road crews
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Wayne P. Waller was getting numbed by construction zone slowdowns driving home on Interstate 75 from his first-ever visit to the Upper Peninsula.
The 65-year-old Rochester Hills resident slowed for mile after mile of 45 mph work zones, where he saw lots of orange barrels but no workers, no equipment and no apparent road hazards.
"You do 50 (mph) and people are about running you off the road, but you don't want to be the guy who gets the big fine," Waller said about penalties that are doubled in work zones. Waller said he was stunned when a driver nearly lost control of a large SUV that had just passed him where the expressway lanes shifted and the pavement suddenly dropped to create an uneven lane.
"He almost rolled it over," Waller said. "There is a justification for the slower speeds. The lanes are narrower, the embankment is closer, but why doesn't someone throw a tarp over the signs in areas where there isn't a problem. It damages the credibility of those signs where there is a safety issue."
That credibility has been a hot topic this summer for state highway officials and groups that lobby to protect road workers. Even a road worker's advocacy group that pushed a few years ago for passage of tougher laws to punish motorists who speed in work areas says poor planning and lax enforcement has led to widespread disregard for safe speeds this year.
"We aren't talking about endangerment here to the road workers. In many of these zones, the only thing you are going to kill is an orange barrel," said Bob Patzer, executive vice president of the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association, a road worker advocacy group.
Government-wide funding cutbacks have meant fewer police officer hours to patrol anywhere. The Michigan Department of Transportation provides about $500,000 a year to police agencies for selective enforcement in construction zones, but it has become an overtime-only assignment for the dwindling number of state troopers.
Reducing risk to road workers is a good reason to slow down, but drivers and their passengers are injured more often than workers. Last year, 22 motorists died in Michigan work zones. Six workers have been killed over the past five years. None last year.
"There is no question that if you throttle speeds down in construction zones that raises the potential for rear-end crashes," said Dick Miller, a former state police trooper who is now AAA Michigan's community safety services manager. "But if you don't slow traffic, you open the door to other crashes because of narrowed shoulders and other hazards. It's all a trade-off and both sides are trying to figure out where it all balances out."
The state tried this spring to set new policies that allowed 50 mph speeds in all work zones, but the Labor International Union of North America protested. The LIUNA represents many of the state's road workers and says higher speeds are OK in zones that have concrete barriers, but 45 mph should be the rule when plastic barrels are all that stands between workers and moving vehicles. The result may have been a larger number of the slower 45 mph zones than in the past.
"We realize it's not the intent of the Michigan Department of Transportation to harm road workers," said Mike Fikes, organizing director of LIUNA's Michigan Labor District Council. "We should be able to come up with other solutions such as increased enforcement and tighter management of the work sites."
Fikes said changing and covering signs every day takes time and money, but portable electronic speed limit signs could easily adjust traffic flow in work zones that don't pose a hazard to motorists when workers aren't there. He even suggested parking unoccupied police cars in work zones with flashers blinking.
"I can count on three fingers the number of times I've seen police cruisers in work zones this summer," Fikes said.
You can reach Doug Guthrie at (313) 222-2359 or dguthrie@detnews.com. Tom Greenwood's column will return.
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