Cameras in work zones can save lives

“Slow down in work zones” is a warning drivers may take more seriously with a program being rolled out by PennDOT to catch speeders on camera and issue warnings and fines by mail.

In 2018, there were 1,804 work-zone crashes in Pennsylvania, and 43% resulted in fatalities or injuries. Since 1970, PennDOT has lost 89 workers in the line of duty. The Pennsylvania Turnpike has lost 45 since 1945.

Those sobering statistics are the impetus behind the rollout of cameras that will record the license plates of drivers speeding through work zones and issue citations by mail.

The program is getting underway with cameras deployed in the Pennsylvania Turnpike system and on Interstate 78. There will eventually be 17 cameras deployed in the state, PennDOT announced.

The law calls for cameras to record license plates of anyone going more than 11 miles per hour above the limit while workers are present. Violators will get a written warning the first time, followed by fines of $75 and $150 for subsequent offenses.

The cameras project is welcome news to contractors, as well as to families of construction workers.

“Every day our workers put themselves in harm’s way,” said Tony Jeremias, spokesman for H&K Group, Skippack Township, Montgomery County, the primary contractor for construction on I-78. “It’s a dangerous road.”

Carl DeFabo, a Pennsylvania Turnpike spokesman, said the locations selected for the pilot project are focused on work zones that have high speeds, heavy traffic and a lot of incidents.

“Workers are vulnerable,” DeFabo said. “When they are out there working, they feel the large tractor-trailers going by.”

Stacey Moyer and Karen Smith, both of Franconia Township, Montgomery County, understand the emotions in that vulnerability.

Their husbands were struck by a distracted driver while they were doing roadwork. David Smith, 53, was killed and Jeffrey Moyer, 46, critically injured after being hit while working on a crew painting lines in front of an elementary school.

Stacey Moyer said it wasn’t unusual for her husband to say a driver had just missed hitting him. “There were multiple times a year he would come home and say, ‘Well, I almost got hit today, this lady was driving by with her cell phone,” or ‘I almost got hit today, this guy wasn’t watching,’” she said.

The two women have been pushing for laws to improve safety measures that address both the speed and distracted driving habits that cause work zone tragedies. “It’s somebody’s life that we’re talking about, and that’s someone’s husband or wife or father or brother or sister, and to me, that’s worth it. Having been through the hell that we’ve been through, it’s worth it,” Stacey Moyer said in an August interview with MediaNews Group.

And while the camera program is designed to prevent speeding, not distracted driving, the two go hand in hand as hazards in work zones. “Through this program we are urging motorists to slow down and pay attention while driving, especially in work zones where roadway conditions can change on a daily basis,” PennDOT Secretary Leslie S. Richards told MediaNews Group.

PennDOT’s aim is to not only protect construction workers but also reduce the risk to motorists traveling through work zones, navigating lane changes, chutes and barriers. Motorists have also endured a death toll from hazards in work zones. In Berks County on I-78, a New Jersey couple was killed in a chain-reaction crash in November 2018 on the way to their wedding in Pittsburgh. And in May 2018, a New Jersey man was fatally injured when his vehicle crashed into a tractortrailer.

Not all agree the program is a benefit. One spokesman for a drivers’ group told MediaNews Group that lower speeds in work zones create other safety problems such as tailgating, and speed enforcement will not help that.

According to PennDOT, cameras work as deterrents.

Ronald J. Young, PennDOT spokesman, said in Maryland, where cameras are deployed, results showed a 35% reduction in all crashes in work zones, and a 40% reduction in crashes that resulted in death or injury.

Smile when you see those cameras: They’re saving lives.