As the new president of the Central Section of IMSA, I extend
greetings and thanks. I have never
met most of you but it is your participation that keeps this Section going
strong. The joint
IMSA/KAUTC Conference that was held in Manhattan on Feb. 6 gave us the
opportunity to revisit
friendships, network with our peers and have a great lunch with our colleagues.
Unfortunately, the
weather did not cooperate for a lot of you and attendance was down for the joint
meeting. I am hoping
that next year’s meeting in Olathe, KS, will be met with better weather and
higher attendance.
Although, we did not see many of you, there we still had a good turnout for the
certification classes
and some of the training sessions were packed to the hilt!
With good weather approaching and more drivers on the road, it is time for a
reminder about safe
work zone practices. Does your city or county have a set procedure on setting up
work zones when
you are working in traffic or adjacent to it? Do you follow those procedures or
do you bend them to
fit the situation? Those procedures are an important part of our jobs and put in
place to protect us.
The 9th Annual Work Zone Awareness Week will be held April 7-11, 2008. This
year’s theme is “Slow
For The Cone Zone”
FHWA Work Zone Safety Facts & Statistics
• Over the last five years, the number of persons killed in motor vehicle
crashes in work
zones has risen from 989 in 2001 to 1,074 in 2005 (an average of 1,068
fatalities a
year).
• Eighty-five percent of those killed in a work zone are drivers or occupants.
• On average from 2001 to 2005 about 15 percent of the fatalities resulting from
crashes in work zones were non-motorists (pedestrians and bicyclists).
• More than 40,000 people are injured each year as a result of motor vehicle
crashes in
work zones.
• Of the 1,074 work zone fatalities in 2005, 235 occurred in crashes involving
large
trucks.
In addition:
• Approximately half of all fatal work zone crashes occurred during the day.
• More than two times as many fatal work zone crashes occurred on weekdays as on
weekends.
• Fatal work zone crashes occurred most often in the summer and the fall.
I leave you with this message; be careful, be safe, and be alive!
Deborah Berry-Dickinson
President
