OUTAGAMIE COUNTY, WI (WTAQ) – Drivers are usually programmed to slow down when they see yellow at a stop light, but officials are saying that it’s vital to reduce speed anytime orange pops-up on the road.
The warning comes along with the start of National Work Zone Awareness Week.
“I think orange is the key,” explains Dean Steingraber, Outagamie County Highway Commissioner. “Looking at those orange signs, those are work zones.”
Anytime a motorist travels through a work zone at dangerous speeds and with a lack of awareness, it puts both them and road crews in potential danger.
Unfortunately, those potentially dangerous situations are becoming a reality all too often throughout Outagamie County.
“There were forty accidents in work zones alone last year… forty,” he explains. “And that to us is too many.”
He says most years they see around thirty accidents in work zones, but the 2018 total of forty is definitely an increase from the past year by a tally of five or six.
Often times members of a work crew have little protection on the roads.
“We have had instances where we’ve had flaggers stop a vehicle and the person is in such a hurry they came up and bumped into them,” he explains.
He adds that drivers have a tendency to act erratically in work zone areas.
That means not only does a motorist need to keep an eye out for road crews, but also on what the driver in front of them and alongside them are doing.
“[If] they make a quick reaction left or right,” says Steingraber. “Or stops right in the middle of the road and boom, there you are.”
He says work zones don’t always feature a reduced speed limit, but it’s a good idea to take your foot off the gas a little, nonetheless.
For him, the motto is “Drive like you work here.”
“We want people to be thinking, ‘Hey, what if you were out there?’ says Steingraber. “What if that’s where you were working, how would you want people to be driving past you [and] interacting with you?”
