Page 48 - TrafficInfraTech Dec-Jan 2019

SAFETY

Making construction

work zones safer

Road construction and maintenance work
is hazardous for both the site workers and

the road user. Engineering, Education and
Enforcement are the three pillars to ensure a
safer construction work zone says Amandeep

Singh Business Head, South Asia and East
Africa, Avery Dennison Reflective Solutions.

ccording to statistics, 4.64 lakh
road accidents took place in 2017
of which 1.3 lakh were fatal taking
away 1.47 lakh lives (Source: Road
AAccidents in India-2017). To put
this in perspective - in the last one decade, the
average annual road deaths stand at 1.3 lakhs
per year- a figure that surpasses the population
of many small cities in India. Many of these traffic
injuries and fatalities happen in the construction
work zones on all roads and highways.
As the road network in India is set to expand,
the traffic situation on the roads with the increase
in number of personal and commercial vehicles
is likely to become complicated. Therefore, a
paradigm shift in design, implementation and
execution of practices is necessary to overcome
the problems related to road safety.
At most of the construction work sites, high
speed traffic is never more than 5-10 meters
away. And non-uniformity in the methods of
traffic control and placement of signs at various
locations increase confusion for road users. In
India, where the travel distances are hundreds
of miles and the vehicle drivers are semiliterate,
there is a need for adopting standardized
methods and devices at construction zones to
ensure the safety of both the road users as well
as the construction workers.

48 December ’18 - January ’19 / TrafficInfraTech www.trafficinfratech-com-500653.hostingersite.com