Jeff Romine and his family.
KDOT
employee Jeff Romine shared his story in 2018 about the need for work zone safety.
He has continued to serve as the Area Five Superintendent in District
One, and he has now been with KDOT nearly 42 years.
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My name is
Jeff Romine, I am currently the Area Five Superintendent in Wamego. I have
worked for the Kansas Department of Transportation for 35 years. I
started out as an Equipment Operator in 1983.
Safety has
been improved for KDOT employees and for the public a great deal since I first
started working for KDOT. For example, I can remember having to set up six
signs when setting up a work zone, three on each side. Now,
depending on the situation, there may be a combination of 10 signs, cones and
rumble strips to alert traffic of a pending work site.
During
my tenure at KDOT, I have seen many close calls ranging from cars hitting
the flagman’s flagging paddle to the mirrors of cars striking workers in the
work zone. I have been lucky enough not to see any deaths as a result of a
work zone crash, although there have been some.
One of the
crashes that stands out in my mind happened in the summer of 1986 on U.S. 75.
We were providing traffic control while Equipment Operators using equipment
cleaned bridge decks. All our work signs were up and flagmen in the correct
locations.
I was helping
to provide traffic control; it was a clear mid-morning day. I stopped a
van to allow traffic to pass through from the other lane. I then moved closer
to the center of the roadway and checked for other oncoming traffic.
I noticed a
car that seemed to be moving faster than I considered to be safe. I realized he
was not slowing so I tried to get his attention by waving the paddle as there
was still traffic coming from the other direction.
I alerted the
driver of the van of the oncoming car, and I was forced to jump over the guard
rail and into the ditch. The car hit the van from behind, causing the back of
the van to bust open. The van was carrying a load of bagged
walnuts. Immediately the highway was covered with walnuts. I
ran back out to check on the drivers of both vehicles, thankfully finding them
not severely injured.
As other
vehicles continued in the other lane, they were running over the walnuts
causing them to shoot through the air, this of course caused another danger as
the walnuts pounded workers and other cars.
I can laugh
about it now and joke that 32 years later, walnuts still haunt me. But the
seriousness of that situation will never be funny. An adult could have been in
the back of that van. Or a child. And they could have been injured, or worse.
Please drive
safe in work zones and protect everyone – motorists and highway workers.
