Highway work zones are some of the most dangerous workplaces in the world. Highway maintenance workers have a fatality rate 3.7 times higher than the average American worker. Compared to engineering or administrative workers, their fatality rate is 19 times worse. When you account for every pedestrian fatality in a highway work zone, over a third were cases where workers were struck
While highway work has always come with risks, it hasn’t always been this deadly. From 2016 to 2019, the number of highway contractors reporting accidents at their job sites increased by 50%. It has remained high since then, unaffected by the drop in traffic from the pandemic. When surveyed, highway contractors were virtually unanimous in saying that the risk of being struck by a vehicle is worse now than even a year ago.
Are Poor Driving Habits to Blame?
In a recent blog, we talked about how lower traffic during the early stages of the pandemic didn’t prevent the fatality rate from climbing. Experts hypothesized that the issue was ultimately poor habits developed when there were fewer motorists on the road. What we’re seeing here is a similar symptom, but it doesn’t seem likely that “bad habits” is a good explanation. After all, the spike in roadside accidents increased after 2016—well before the pandemic.
So while poor habits play a role, that doesn’t explain why roadside work got so much more dangerous after 2016.
Preventing Highway Job Site Accidents in Pennsylvania
As Harrisburg work injury lawyers, we’re ultimately more concerned with preventing highway pedestrian accidents. The solution for keeping workers safe here is fairly straightforward: preventative and protective measures like barrier separation to keep workers as insulated from traffic as possible. The cost of installing barriers and preventative protection is roughly 10–23% the total losses incurred by highway work accidents as of today; in other words, it’s a lot less expensive to simply make workers safer.
We also need to ensure that workers who are injured in roadside accidents get whatever they need to rebuild their lives. That includes providing whatever wages they’ve lost, medical costs they’ve incurred, and reductions in quality of life they’ve experienced. At Handler, Henning & Rosenberg LLC, that’s been our job for over a century. Since 1922, the plaintiffs of Central Pennsylvania have turned to us for help getting justice and rebuilding their lives. If you’ve been injured in a highway work accident, speak with our work accident lawyers in Harrisburg as soon as possible.
Call (888) 498-3023 for a free consultation, or contact us online to schedule a call at our earliest availability.