Why didn't you have any signs up, asks distracted driver

By Kade Cooper

Kade Cooper with his wife, Jackie, and kids Kinley and Andrew.

My name is Kade Cooper and I am the Subarea Supervisor for the Belleville Subarea in north central Kansas. I have been a part of the KDOT team for 15 years, spending the last eight years as the Supervisor. 

One of my biggest fears as a Supervisor is having to go to a family member’s house and letting them know that their loved one, one of my crew members, has been hit and killed on the road. That is news that no one wants to receive or give ever. By the grace of God, I have not had to break that news, and I pray that I never have to.

With that being said, we have had close calls on our routes. Whether we are on U.S. 81 patching potholes and watching the traffic buzz past us, or on K-148 working on guardrail as 18-wheelers see how close they can get to our flaggers, no route should ever be a place to lose focus. 

One incident that stands out to me and that has shaped me into the person I am today happened when I was an Equipment Operator with the Mankato Subarea in 2004. It was an uncomfortably hot June day and we were replacing a tube on K-28 east of Jewell.

In those days, we only needed the road work ahead, one lane road ahead and flagger signs out to cover our work zone. I was flagging one end of the work zone when I heard the faint hum of wheels on the highway growing louder. Usually you can hear that sound before you see the vehicle coming. I started paying a little closer attention to my surroundings, waiting for the vehicle to come into view. 

As the pickup came into view, I noticed a small car driving rather close behind this vehicle. I started to wave my arms and raised the stop/slow paddle to make myself appear larger. I could hear the pickup idle down, however, the small car revved its engine and passed the pickup coming into our work zone. 

As a rather green rookie, I was nervous not knowing if I would get this car stopped in time or if I would have to holler on the radio and jump out of the way into the ditch. It happened to be the latter of the two! 

I yelled at the crew in the work zone and threw my flagging paddle towards the middle of the lane that I was standing in and flung myself into the ditch. From what I could hear, the flagging paddle made contact with the car where I would have been standing, and that is what got the driver’s attention.

When he got stopped, and I got out of the ditch, he got out of his car and asked if I was alright and said that he didn’t know there was any work around and why didn’t we have any signs up! The entire crew pointed back the direction that he came and from where we were standing, we could see all three of the warning signs in that direction. 

I came out of that without a scratch and gained a new-found respect for what my fellow crew members had been experiencing for years. I learned that you can have everything set up correctly and can still have a close call. I learned that it will never be the traveling public’s fault in their eyes. I learned that a flagging paddle will make one heck of a sound when it hits a car motoring down the road!  I learned that being focused on that sound and seeing both of those vehicles when I did probably saved my life. I learned that I don’t ever want my family to get a visit from my Supervisor because I was in the right place at the wrong time. 

That is not the only close call that I have been around, but it is the only one that I’ve had to dive out of the way! I can look back at it now and chuckle about how hard the paddle hit that car, but cringe to think that it could have been me making that sound.

So, I will leave my fellow highway workers with this - please stay focused at the task at hand. It may only take milliseconds for you to have to make a decision that could save your life or the life of your coworker. You have no idea what the motorists are doing or thinking in their 75-mph world, so stay alert, stay safe and go home to your families at the end of the day!