BRENDAN BURKE Star-Tribune staff writer | Posted: Tuesday, April 6, 2004 12:00 am
Using absurdity to drive home a point on safety in roadway work zones, Del McOmie, chief engineer for the Wyoming Department of Transportation, sat himself down at an office desk in an eastbound lane of Second Street on Monday morning.
McOmie didn't get any work done at the desk, but office productivity was not the point of the exercise, which was held in conjunction with National Work Zone Awareness Week. Instead, he said, he wanted to instill the concept in Casper motorists' minds that roadway work zones are the offices of flaggers and construction workers.
In the past five years 1,400 traffic accidents have occurred in Wyoming's roadway work zones, McOmie said at his desk, placed in a portion of Second Street currently under construction. More than 600 injuries resulted from these accidents, and 17 people were killed in them, according to Wyoming Department of Transportation (WYDOT) documents.
The vast majority of the people killed in these accidents were not construction workers bowled over by out-of-control vehicles. They were the occupants of vehicles involved in the wrecks, WYDOT spokesman Bruce Burrows said.
These stats show that adhering to safety practices while passing through work zones not only benefits those who work on the roads, but is vital to drivers and passengers as well, WYDOT spokesman Jim Nations said.
The two most common unsafe practices committed by motorists in work zones are speeding and driver inattention, Burrows added. And the analogy made McOmie's bizarre office setup brings to light how unsafe both these practices really are, Burrows and Nations said.
You would not like it if someone drove through your office going 50 mph - well over the speed limit, Burrows said. Neither do the flaggers and construction workers, he added.
As McOmie sat at his desk, dozens of rubbernecking motorists took their eyes momentarily off the road to get a longer look at the absurd Second Street office space as they passed it.
McOmie's desk reinforces the notion that drivers should expect the unexpected when passing through work zones, Nations said.
"You might go through a work zone one day and there might be flaggers out and the next day there may be big pieces of equipment that you did not see the previous day," Nations said. "Be ready for anything."