National Work Zone Safety Week: ODOT advises drivers to slow down, move over for crews

DAYTON — This week is National Work Zone Safety, a week dedicated to raising awareness for safe driving through work zones.

Statewide there have already been 71 agency vehicles hit so far this year, our news partners at WBNS in Columbus report.

Ohio Department of Transportation Press Secretary Matt Bruning told WBNS that he, unfortunately, witnessed this firsthand.

Bruning was coming from a Columbus work zone event when he was struck by another vehicle.

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Columbus police said the driver that struck him was going over 70 miles per hour in a 45mph work zone.

“At those speeds in a work zone that is probably not a survivable crash if one of our people get hit,” Bruning told WBNS.

“We just really need to get people to slow down, pay attention to what’s going on in those work zones, give those crews extra room to work, allow that extra space between you and the vehicle in front of you, and if we accomplish those simple things, we will dramatically reduce work zone crashes in Ohio,” he cautioned.

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In Miami County, a crew was sideswiped on April 12 on Insterstate 75 Northbound north of State route 41 while fixing potholes.

“Thankfully, our crew is ok. The crash attenuator was damaged,” The Dayton division of ODOT said on social media.

In late March we reported that two people were injured in a crash involving an ODOT work truck on I-70 in Clark County.

The work crew was working in the right lane and shoulder sweeping the lanes before the crash happened, state troopers said.

“They all have somebody they want to go home to at the end of the night, whether it’s friends or family, they have hobbies, they have a life outside of work. It’s not just a faceless thing outside on the road,” Bruning said.

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