July 4, 2008

Ontario Road Builders’ Association

Enforcement key to protecting road crews, says ORBA

VINCE VERSACE

staff writer

New work zone safety concepts being considered by the Ontario Road Builders’ Association (ORBA) require the teeth of law enforcement to play a central role.

“The key to work zone safety is enforcement,” says Karen Renkema, government relations director at ORBA.

“Our members have expressed various ideas and enforcement is seen as very important.”

Two concepts currently being discussed among ORBA’s membership and with Ontario’s transportation ministry (MTO) concern speed display signs for work zones and a police presence on work sites.

“We have had some members use the signs and they find people do slow down. One of the keys with the display is that it be moved to different locations at the work site,” Renkema said.

ORBA would like to see the speed display signs appear more often at work sites, with a possible agreement from MTO to have them on all its work sites.

The presence of a police officer at a work site is not uncommon, but it can be an expensive safety element to have on any project, whether it is a for a municipality or the province.

How that cost can be reduced needs to be explored, says Renkema.

ORBA and MTO do not currently have plans for a road safety campaign designed to raise public awareness such as a recent one rolled out in New Brunswick by the Partners for Safe Highway Construction.

That partnership included the Province of New Brunswick, the Road Builders Association of New Brunswick, and the New Brunswick Construction Safety Association.

The partnership aimed to increase safety in highway construction zones for workers and the general public through public education, appropriate signage, and the training of workers. The three-year campaign urged drivers to “Slow Please” because someone’s relative was at work in a construction zone. The bilingual messages were primarily delivered through radio ads in the campaign’s first year.

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