Safety
Safety is a top priority with everyone involved in the road- and bridge-building market. The Safety Channel is a reflection of the commitment to reduce injuries and fatalities at the jobsite. Enhancing this section is Roads & Bridges' continued partnership with the American Traffic Safety Services Association (ATSSA). ATSSA has represented companies and individuals in the traffic control and roadway safety industry for 35 years. Over 1,800 members provide the majority of safety features, services and materials used on the nation's roadways.
Image: @RoseanneTellez on Twitter
Transportation officials in the city of Chicago have shut down the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive at the bridge over the Chicago River due to what is being referred to as a structural emergency.
Crews first spotted cracks in the support beams of the structure around 10 a.m. Monday beneath...
A study conducted by researchers at the Department of Health at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell has concluded that dangerous levels of respirable silica are difficult to control during chipping and crushing activities even when dust control measures are in place. The study cites risk for...
Finance company Value Penguin recently released a list of the states with the highest winter weather-related driving fatalities, compiled from statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
From 2013 to 2017, there were 2,718 fatalities that resulted from winter weather-...
Although extensive testing has shown that silica dust emissions from large mills are often below the OSHA Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) for respirable crystalline silica (RCS), sometime referred to as the Silica Rule or Silica Standard, the industry is set on a course to further reduce such...
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently announced its 2019–2020 Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements.
First issued in 1990, the NTSB Most Wanted List of Transportation Safety Improvements serves as the agency’s primary advocacy tool to help save lives, prevent...
Source: Twitter
On the heels of a request from the city’s mayor, Houston transportation advocacy group LINK Houston, in partnership with Bike Houston, is conducting an audit to identify the city’s most problematic intersections for walkers and bicyclists.
Audit team members will be looking at traffic counts...
Sound Transit, the public transit agency serving the Seattle area, announced this week its completion of positive train control (PTC) implementation and certification on all Sounder commuter rail vehicles that run between Lakewood and Everett.
PTC technology can control train movements under...
Figure 1. MoDOT AFAD and its CMS signs.
Flaggers are professionally trained to guide and direct vehicles through work zones, and they are often located closest to the oncoming traffic. Discovering ways to protect flaggers is an important issue in work-zone safety. One countermeasure that can be applied when there is a one-lane closure on...
Numetric, a provider of traffic safety analytics solutions, recently announced the launch of its new Network Screening application to empower states to meet or exceed federal requirements and identify their most dangerous roadways.
Due to a current lack of sufficient tools, the process of...
Officials with the Utah Department of Transportation are meeting with rangers from the National Park Service to discuss plowing roads in three of Utah’s national parks during the federal government shutdown.
The shutdown, which is now approaching the end of its third week, has halted funding to...
Image: Arizona DOT
The Arizona Department of Transportation’s (ADOT) thermal camera-based wrong-way vehicle detection system along I-17 in Phoenix alerted authorities and other motorists to a pickup truck traveling the wrong way on the freeway early Monday morning.
No one was hurt as the vehicle traveled southbound...
When the Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) first began working on the redesign of the I-235/U.S. 54 interchange in Wichita, the challenge was clear—improve traffic flow and driver safety at each roadway entrance and exit on one of the most heavily traveled interchanges in the state.
With...
At 1:11 a.m. following the 2018 Fourth of July celebration, a vehicle traveled southbound in the northbound lanes of north Phoenix’s I-17 at Union Hills Road.
Immediately, the wrong-way driver detection system installed earlier in the year set off a system alarm. A loud horn went off in the...
Camera setups such as this have been in place on select high-rise rooftops along the test corridor since 2002, collecting data all the while.
On a rough stretch of what is “commonly” known as the I-94 Commons—for the fact that at this particular location I-94 threads in with I-35, both interstates sharing a common series of lanes—a project has been ongoing since 2002 to gather traffic movement data in an effort to, ultimately, create...
Reduced visibility conditions such as fog represent a challenging environment for drivers.
Fog reduces visibility and contrast in the visual field, which can negatively affect the perception of depth and speed. When these crucial driving cues are obscured, a driver’s ability to judge appropriate...
Image: Minnesota DOT
The Minnesota Department of Transportation's (MnDOT) Safety Innovation Team is introducing an LED lighted plow marker for winter maintenance activities in the state in order to reduce the number of motorist collisions with the department's snowplows.
In the winter of 2017-18, there were 84...
When the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) Eastern Region, located in Spokane, scheduled a two-day paving project this past August on S.R. 26 near Colfax, they decided to deploy RoadQuake Temporary Portable Rumble Strips (TPRS) in the work zone.
Colfax, Wash., 60 miles due...
Image: Uber Blog
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) has approved the continued testing of Uber's self-driving vehicles in autonomous mode in Pittsburgh and the surrounding areas for the first time since March of this year.
An Associated Press report indicates the ride-sharing company has been...
Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) efforts that have improved safety on a busy stretch of westbound U.S. 60 in Tempe and advanced a first-in-the-nation system that reduces the risk from wrong-way drivers have been honored by the National Operations Center of Excellence.
The organization...
Road-Tech Safety Services Inc., located in Shingle Springs, Calif., about 40 miles east of Sacramento, provides equipment rental and sales, traffic control supplies, and traffic control services to the highway construction industry.
Last summer, Road-Tech provided traffic control services for a...
