If you haven’t seen the video, let me describe it to you.
It was shot last Wednesday morning in a construction zone in Burnaby, B.C. The road is being repaved and traffic is being directed to the curb lane, where the back-up isn’t actually that bad.
The video shows a white SUV that, despite the posts marking the closed lane, somehow managed to make it up the lane being paved and the driver now wants in.
A traffic control flagger stands beside an orange post a few metres in front of the vehicle holding up her stop sign.
You can hear the man shooting the video say, “He’s going to run over you.”
The SUV begins moving forward, slowly at first. The flagger approaches, now waving the stop sign and putting her hand on the hood of the car. The driver hits the accelerator, hitting the flagger. The car knocks her to the ground, partially under the car and appears to run over her leg.
Then the SUV drives off.
The RCMP say the same driver hit a second flagger farther down the road. The driver of the vehicle was arrested a short time later.
The first flagger was taken to hospital with what police said are non-life threatening injuries. The second flagger’s injuries were less serious.
The incident is shocking and bizarre. It may not be indicative of the sort of threats flaggers face on a daily basis – who would expect someone to intentionally run you over – but it graphically illustrates that the people in charge of directing traffic around roadwork and construction sites do a dangerous job.
WorkSafeBC data released in May show that over the past decade, 15 roadside workers – not all of them flaggers – were killed on the job. Another 229 roadside workers were injured.
Despite numerous safety campaigns, stepped-up enforcement and reminders to drivers that the people wearing safety vests have families, drivers routinely speed through construction zones and have little regard for the people who work there.
Last week’s incident was beyond the pale.
Veteran flagger Diane Herback knows the first woman injured in the incident. She says the video – which was widely shared – brought her to tears. “I got called at 10:30 at night, and at 2:00 o’clock in the morning, I was talking to 30 flaggers who were out of bed over this incident. And I can tell you right now, we’re mad,” she told me in an interview.
Ms. Herback wants to see criminal charges laid against the driver. “There better be jail time. The judge needs to set a precedent once this all goes through,” she said.
Ms. Herback says in her nearly 30 years on the job, she’s been spat at, had garbage thrown at her and had to dive off the road out of the path of moving vehicles. She says she loves her job, but it’s becoming more and more dangerous.
“The public just has no respect for us – not all of the public – but the majority of the public, they do not like to wait,” she said.
The summer months can be trying for motorists as municipalities pack in as much roadwork as they can while the streets are dry and traffic is relatively light. Avoiding one construction site often leads you into another one. It’s frustrating and, as a result, flaggers are sometimes viewed as impediments – the thing between you and where you need to be.
Ms. Herback wants drivers to know her job is not to give you a hard time. “We’re not out there to make your life miserable, were out there to guide you through the zone safely. If you’re going slow enough and you’re paying attention we can stop you if something happens – if something falls out of the excavator bucket or a chain breaks on something they’re off-loading. If you’re going slow enough and you’re paying attention, we can save your life,” she said.
So maybe think about that the next time you’re delayed in a construction zone or a roadwork site.
Think about rolling down the window to say thank you, or offering a wave.
You may be mildly inconvenienced or delayed, but at the end of the day, they deserve to go home to their families.
Follow us on Twitter: @GlobeBC
powered by sue.ng a legal search engine