Warmer weather means that road maintenance season has begun, and more work zones are appearing on our interstates, roads, and streets. It’s also the time of year when more people are driving longer miles to the beach, mountains, and other vacation destinations.
- Plan your Road maintenance work:
A traffic management strategy should be included in every road maintenance project. A temporary traffic management strategy should be included in the plan to safeguard employees by securely directing traffic around or through the construction zone. You should also have an internal traffic management strategy in place to handle the movement of heavy equipment, construction vehicles, and personnel.
- Traffic Control
The work zone should include an advanced warning area with warning signs alerting motorists to impending changes in driving conditions, a transition area with traffic control devices for lane closures and traffic pattern shifts, a buffer area, the work area, and a termination area to allow traffic to resume normal operations, as well as a sign indicating that the work zone has ended.
- Stay away from blind spots.
Vehicles and heavy equipment such as dump trucks, compactors, pavement planers, excavators, pavers, and rollers are continually moving about the road maintenance work zone.
Remember that the driver has a restricted line of sight if you are on foot and operating near these devices while they are in operation. Maintain constant eye contact with the driver. A good rule of thumb to remember is that if you can’t see them, they generally can’t see you either.
- Establish a Site-Specific Safety Program.
Every road maintenance work is unique, and each work zone has its own set of risks and obstacles, so developing a safety programme tailored to the site may go a long way toward reducing accidents.
The site-specific safety programme should involve identifying all dangers and strategies to manage and mitigate them, regular inspection schedules for all equipment and materials, a plan for first aid and emergency medical treatment in the case of an accident, and safety training schedules for all personnel.
- Have a competent somebody on hand.
When road maintenance work is being done, a qualified person should be present in the workplace. A competent person is someone who is “capable of detecting existing and foreseeable dangers in the surroundings, or working circumstances that are unclean, hazardous, or dangerous to workers, and who has the authority to take quick remedial actions to eradicate them”. A competent individual is required to perform danger assessments and frequent road maintenance workplace inspections.
A competent person is also required to pick the right class of personal protective equipment (PPE) to be worn by employees and to approve the suitable kinds of traffic control devices. Workers must promptly report any harmful risks or equipment to the competent person assigned to the road maintenance work zone so that they may be remedied.