Watch for Road Construction Crews

When a tractor-trailer barrelled into Basil Atkinson's work zone last month on Highway 104 near Debert, the results were near tragic.

Braking hard, the tractor-trailor broke through an angled line of striped barrels, ramming Atkinson's parked one-tonne truck. The impact hurled the smaller truck 28 metres down the road, injuring the highway worker.

Atkinson, a crewman with the Department of Transportation and Public Works, was part of a team patching pavement on the Trans- Canada Highway.

"The impact scared me. It scared me to the point where I didn't know if I was going to be killed or not," he said. "High speed highways are extremely dangerous to work on. When people don't slow down, it makes it pretty scary."

Ron Russell, Minister of Transportation and Public Works, said hundreds of men and women are working on more than $100 million worth of highway construction and maintenance projects this summer to make Nova Scotia's highways safer.

"They deserve to work in safe surroundings," Mr. Russell said. "We're asking motorists to take no chances with the lives of highway workers."

Strict occupational health and safety regulations ensure that today's work zones are marked with orange cones, barrels, concrete barriers, arrow boards and signs, well in advance of crews to create a buffer zone that protects them on the job. Whenever necessary, trained traffic control people are also posted at work zones to guide the flow of traffic and protect workers.

Mr. Russell said prior to each long weekend this summer, beginning Wednesday, June 28, radio commercials will broadcast a message reminding motorists to slow down and use caution around work zones.

"We have a good record of highway safety in Nova Scotia, but last month's collision in a work zone troubled me," he said. "Summer in Nova Scotia is construction season and tourist traffic always means more cars on the road. Simple safety precautions protect both motorists and road crews."

Jack Osmond, co-chair of the Nova Scotia Temporary Workplace Traffic Control Committee, said having someone drive through your workplace at 100 kilometres an hour is unsafe.

"In the past 12 years, industry, the public and regulators have worked to dramatically reduce deaths and injures in road crews, but people still drive too fast around work zones," said Mr. Osmond, a Nova Scotia contractor for 38 years. "Our committee's next challenge is to get the public's help to bring down those speeds. Public awareness is one way we can make that happen."

Meanwhile, Mr. Atkinson, is being treated for whiplash injuries.

"I was lucky the result wasn't worse," he said. "Crews have to work safe and drivers have to be alert at all times. Our lives depend on it."