WASHINGTON   –  “On April 7th, if you are driving near Cape Girardeau, you might see something that makes you slow down a little – the Bill Emerson Bridge, spanning the Mississippi River – lit entirely by orange lights.

Orange lighting on the bridge will make a dramatic statement, and getting drivers to slow down is the desired effect.  But the slow-down is not meant to happen only around the bridge... we want it to happen around Missouri, every day, on our interstates, highways, and city streets: everywhere road crews are working.

The bridge lighting is part of a larger effort, called Operation Orange, to raise awareness of city, county, state and contract workers throughout our state who literally put their lives in your hands when they labor alongside busy roadways.  National statistics on this subject are sobering – 7,642 people were injured and 139 killed in highway work zones between 2001 and 2006.  The Missouri Department of Transportation is taking a lead role in this initiative, and urging drivers to use more caution on the thoroughfares of our state.

Lighting the bridge in orange will give us an occasion to pause and remember all those who have been killed or injured while working along the nation’s highways, and it will also offer us the opportunity to reexamine our responsibilities as drivers.  Work zones are akin to minefields when it comes to defensive driving, especially at high speeds.  Visibility is impaired, road markings can be difficult to see, and sudden stops can appear out of nowhere.  Throw challenging weather conditions into the mix and you have the perfect recipe for a tragic accident.

I’m guessing that, in the offices and classrooms where most of us work and go to school, there is not a steady stream of traffic moving at 60 miles per hour.

 
When we’re in a hurry, rushing from place to place, it can be tempting to drive even faster than necessary – especially in a work zone.  The ramifications for even a minor slip at highway speeds can be life-threatening, or even life-ending.  Thinking about those road crews and their families ought to slow us all down. 

If that doesn’t ease your foot off the gas pedal, then the Missouri State Highway Patrol and other local law enforcement agencies are happy to do so.  They are extremely dedicated to protecting the men and women who work along our roadways.  The law is particularly harsh on motorists who speed or drive recklessly in work zones – and rightly so.

National Work Zone Safety Awareness week is April 7th to April 11th.  During this week and every other, the orange color we see marking all of the work zones in our state and others should trigger an immediate response from drivers and their passengers.  Be alert, be cautious, obey the law, and – most of all – be mindful of safe conditions not just for the people on the road, but also those working beside it.

In the rural parts of our state, we do a lot of traveling on byways and highways.  As you use caution on our roads, I thank you, the Missouri Department of Transportation thanks you, and the loved ones of our thousands of road construction workers thank you, too.”