By Derrick Shannon
I started working for
KDOT in August of 2002 on the Garnett Area Crew and am now the
Area
Superintendent in Iola.
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| Derrick Shannon |
The first time I was
assigned to flag was on K-68. The crew was putting a hand rail back on a bridge
that a car had taken off. Back then, we
used three signs and no cones. It took
about 10 minutes to put up the traffic control.
I was handed the paddle and radio and told to stop traffic. I got right to work. The morning went fine
with cars and trucks stopping as they should.
Just after I went back to my flagging position after my second break of
the day, a big yellow dump truck flew past me. The driver did not even touch
the brake till he was all the way past me.
Another close call
was just a few years ago when I was the Equipment Operator Specialist on
the Iola Subarea crew. We were patching
concrete on U.S. 169. The crew members had the traffic control in place and
were using the new automated flaggers. I was running the controls and had just
closed the northbound flagger to stop traffic. A car was coming into the work
zone and was about at the sign that says do not pass. The driver drove right
around the automated flagger, came right up to where I was running the remote
and told me the flagger was broke because the arm just fell down right in front
of them.
I have only been
involved in one accident in a work zone in my 14-year career with KDOT and
lucky for me and the crew, no one was hurt. It happened on U.S. 54 when I was
an Equipment Operator. A semi-truck slammed into the back of a pickup truck
that was stopped at the flagger. Lucky for everyone involved the semi turned
into the ditch. The pickup truck that was hit only went about 50 feet forward
and the flagger was able to get out of the way.
I really want to
thank all of the Kansas Department of Transportation people that worked so hard
at coming up with the set-up for traffic control that we use today. I believe
the workers are better protected now from distracted drivers that they come
across on the roads.
I am reminded of
these times when I hear crews complain about having to spend so much time
setting out 30 lead-in cones, 10 signs, six cone tapers at both ends, a crash
attenuator, a buffer zone and a pilot car. I just let them know how much safer
they are nowadays than what we were in previous years.
