Highway and street construction workers are at risk of fatal and serious nonfatal injury when working in the vicinity of passing motorists, construction vehicles, and equipment. Each year, more than 100 workers are killed and over 20,000 are injured in the highway and street construction industry. Vehicles and equipment operating in and around the work zone are involved in over half of the worker fatalities in this industry. Historically, efforts to reduce vehicle-related worker injuries in this industry have focused on improving traffic control devices and work zone configurations to minimize confusion of motorists passing through the work zone and to limit collisions involving motorists. The premise has been that by minimizing traffic collisions in work zones, worker injuries are minimized. However, fatality data indicate that workers being struck by a motorist passing through the work zone account for only half the vehicle-related fatalities among highway workers. To better understand these injury risks, NIOSH reviewed the current literature on highway safety, analyzed data on worker fatalities in the highway and street construction industry, and held a workshop with individuals from government, labor, industry, academia, and state departments of transportation.
Building Safer Highway Work Zones: Measures to Prevent Worker Injuries from Vehicles and Equipment
2001
78 pages
Report
No indication
English
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