Category: PILLAR Talk

Drive Safe, Work Safe, Save Lives

Post author By clewis
Post date April 16, 2021

National Work Zone Safety Awareness Week is April 26 – 30

National Work Zone Awareness Week, April 26-30, is a timely reminder for motorists to stay alert for DOT and other workers. In 2020, work zone crashes and fatalities increased, despite lower traffic volumes due to COVID-19.

Distracted Driving Costs Lives

Even a small mistake by a driver or worker can be disastrous in and around a highway work zone. Highway workers are in a high-risk category, but statistically, motorists are even more at risk. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), most fatalities in work zones are motorists, not highway workers. The National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse – which collects federal data – reported that in 2019, there were over 760 work zone fatal crashes that resulted in 842 deaths.

National Efforts to Increase Work Zone Safety

To combat this significant public safety issue, 48 states have banned text messaging for all drivers, while 25 states, including Virginia, prohibit all drivers from using handheld cellphones while driving. Using a handheld cell phone while driving, and especially in a work zone, can be a deadly choice.

Defensive Driving Tips for Work Zones

Stay focused and alert in a work zone: DO NOT use a cell phone, change the radio, eat, apply makeup, or create a distraction from the road.
Research your route. When possible, try to avoid work zones altogether and use detours when available.
Lane closures and reduced speeds are common in work zones. Slow down when entering a work zone and pay careful attention to the presence of workers and machinery.
Move into an open lane as soon as possible when approaching a lane closure. Remember to pay close attention to other vehicles around you, particularly in your blind spot.
Avoid trucks of all types when possible. They usually have limited visibility and cannot maneuver as well as smaller vehicles. Give them a lot of room in all driving situations.
Because rear-end crashes are the most common types of collision in work zones, always maintain extra following distance between vehicles. Four seconds is the recommended following distance.
Turn on your headlights, even if it is not required by law. It is good ‘driving practice’. Headlights ‘on’ is the equivalent of wearing a high visibility vest on your vehicle. This helps other drivers identify your presence.

Be Alert. Risks Abound Outside Work Zones

The risks and challenges associated with highway travel are not confined to defined work zones. There are numerous other activities on a road that can easily create impairment to safe travel, such as mowing, litter pick up, snow & ice control, law enforcement activity, animal hazard, standing water, pavement defect (i.e., pothole), etc.

While work zones are usually well marked with signage and devices, most of these other impairments offer minimal advance warning to motorists. The combination of ‘Boots on the Ground’ (that would be Pillar!), a distracted or impaired driver, failure to reduce speed or any of the other risks noted above can prove to be costly, if not deadly, if you aren’t paying attention.

When transiting work zones, remember to be patient and stay focused.

PILLAR employees and other work zone crew members across the nation diligently strive to improve our infrastructure and make the roads safer for everyone. Join PILLAR next week as we raise awareness for work zone safety.

Transportation Asset Management: A Vital Tool In Community Resiliency Efforts

Post author By clewis
Post date March 30, 2021

In recent years, local municipalities and the federal government have invested millions to make their cities more resilient and prepare for natural disasters, along with mitigating the imposing threats of climate change. Local and federal governments are realizing the critical role transportation infrastructure plays in assisting in disaster and climate adaption efforts and are searching for ways to increase community resilience, improve aging infrastructure, and decrease flood risks with transportation asset management.

Investing in Resilience and Sustainability

In 2017, the City of Miami passed a $400 million general obligation bond, with half of the investment funding community resilience, disaster, and climate relief efforts. This includes reducing flooding risks, mitigating rising sea levels, enhancing public safety, and improving infrastructure. As of March 2021, there are 7 on-going projects in the city to assess transportation assets and improve infrastructure.

In February 2021, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration awarded a $1.1 million grant to the Miami Conversancy District in Dayton, Ohio to protect communities from flooding and upgrade Dayton’s levee system. The grant is matched with a $276,254 local investment, all focused on supporting key infrastructure improvements in the Miami Valley.

Challenges of Resiliency Planning and Disaster Management

From mitigating flooded roadways to effectively planning emergency routes, community resiliency plans start with a comprehensive and accurate assessment of all transportation assets, including pavement condition, stormwater management systems, bridges, tunnels, signage, medians, and guardrails—just to name a few.

A significant challenge for most asset management and disaster prevention systems is the lack of a reliable infrastructure asset collection, leading to delays in response time. In terms of the cost to human lives and properties, delays can be hazardous for disaster management agencies. A robust asset management and analysis system is required to ensure that the asset condition is properly assessed, so accurate insights for improving the asset are found.

With lives at stake, effective transportation asset management requires industry expertise and next generation technology to make informed decisions based on data.

PILLAR’s Mobile LiDAR collects massive amounts of data with speed, precision, and cost-efficiency. This system helps us complete surveys in a fraction of the time compared to traditional survey methods. As a result, higher quality data is collected to develop effective emergency response and community resiliency plans and secure appropriate budgets for repair and ongoing maintenance.

With Mobile LiDAR’s fully Automatic Feature Extraction System (AFES), data can be instantly extracted and integrated with existing databases – increasing efficiency, transparency, and better planning.

BE PREPARED WITH PILLAR

Municipalities across the nation are using transportation asset management data to better prepare and protect their communities against natural disasters and the imposing threats of climate change. This is where PILLAR comes in. Equipped with the best asset management experts and advanced technology, PILLAR efficiently collects transportation asset data, accurately assess asset conditions, develops, and executes asset management plans to maintain and optimize their performance against climate change and natural disasters.

As a transportation asset management firm, we help organizations save time, money, and face (by preventing public outcry in the case of a disaster). Partner with us today and help the communities that you serve be more resilient.

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Your Technology Guide for Geospatial Asset Collection

Post author By Brad Timofeev
Post date March 17, 2021

Geospatial technologies increasingly allow engineers and experts to evaluate assets quickly and accurately. Since the Department of Labor introduced geospatial guidelines for professionals in 2010, new methods and approaches have emerged with promising results.

Explore these technologies and their diverse applications below. Learn how advanced firms like PILLAR can help you evaluate assets, collect data, and improve infrastructure with these various geospatial tools.

Static LiDAR

Collecting assets inside buildings, through intersections, on bridges, and on the ground—Static LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) measures and records asset data at a precise, granular level. The efficiency and methodology of Static LiDAR provide increased clarity for more complete and valuable data.

Since the information stored details your assets accurately, Static LiDAR applies best for transportation and construction applications, improving asset insights and decision-making for operations and maintenance planning.

Mobile LiDAR

Mobile LiDAR scans roadways and other infrastructure assets with extreme accuracy and cost-efficiency. With a vehicle traversing highways, roads, and bridges, Mobile LiDAR provides detailed data on elevation, pavement conditions, guardrails, road signs and more:

Street and highway conditions
Landscape and transit elevation
On-the-ground data
Bridges, tunnels, slopes, and fences

Transportation and construction managers find great utility in this powerful mapping method, covering up to 50 miles of right-of-way every day.

Aerial Collection

Using planes and helicopters, aerial collection captures exansive plots of land by scanning and storing data without street-level detail.

Helpfully, anyone can access aerial collection data in their state since each makes this information public. While it is less detailed than LiDAR data (which most states do not publish), this format is used across industries:

Mining
Gas and Oil
Agriculture and Forestry
Infrastructure and Utilities
Emergency and Disaster
Construction Sites
Corridor Mapping

When you use this broad data in combination with sharp LiDAR collection methods, you’ll benefit from a global and granular assessment of your assets.

Drone Collection

Data on some assets can by difficult to collect. In some cases, data collection would block accessibility to the asset itself, present a safety issue or is simply inaccessible.. Drone collection offers a way for companies to still collect miles of asset data and related functions in the following industries:

Mining
Gas and Oil
Agriculture and Forestry
Infrastructure and Utilities
Emergency and Disaster

Speed through Asset Collection with PILLAR (and Save)

Committed to client safety and satisfaction, PILLAR provides quick, quality data to infrastructure professionals, by tailoring the data collection solutions and recommendations for public project improvements. Our meticulous approach promises accuracy and efficiency, and our extensive expertise means clients save time and money through our proven asset management process.

Contact PILLAR at info@pillaroma.com or (276) 223-0500 to leverage our advanced technologies and optimize your operations and maintenance plans.

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Why You Need a Geospatial Asset Inventory

Post author By Brad Timofeev
Post date March 17, 2021

Knowing the location, material, condition, and context of all your geospatial assets requires full-scale understanding. Without this global and granular view of your assets and infrastructure, it’s difficult to support decisions intended to improve assets, manage maintenance, and more.

Learn some of the most important reasons you need a geospatial asset inventory including emergency management, compliance, and development.

1. Asset locations alone are too limited in detail.

While identifying the location of an asset is essential, it’s not enough for proper evaluation and maintenance planning when material, condition, and context are left out. Geospatial technology such as Mobile LiDAR, delivers massive amounts of asset data quickly and accurately. This data is critical for optimizing asset lifecycles, pinpointing infrastructure needs, and budgeting public improvements.

2. Geospatial information integrates into existing systems.

The need to share data with many collaborators and managers has exploded as companies merge databases, share information, and combine research. Easily accessible geospatial asset data helps various departments, organizations, and stakeholders access the data they need to leverage asset insights and optimize its operations and maintenance programs.

3. Asset inventories serve many needs, functions, and organizations.

Data is a renewable resource. Once collected, your asset information can be used and extracted for new, increasingly useful applications. With the source data and extracted assets, various partners, agencies, and departments can benefit:

Operations & Maintenance
Emergency
Financial
Development
Compliance

Moreover, to gain access, these participating organizations can share costs, furthering your budget’s reach.

4. Advanced technologies offer value and savings.

LiDAR technology and aerial collection capture large amounts of data while saving time and money on staffing crews to survey the land. Mobile and compact, these collection methods can extract asset data in mere hours and days rather than the weeks or months it might take less experienced, equipped teams on the ground.

5. Observe conditions and assets remotely.

With the data PILLAR captures for clients using Mobile LiDAR and imagery, engineers and crews can see and explore the field without stepping foot out of the office. Without the need to deploy a professional to report conditions, decision-makers can simply determine the best courses of action to save time, resources, and energy.

Automate and Streamline Asset Inventory Collection

Though some organizations and professionals struggle to coordinate such an inventory, others have found success with automated extraction methods, time-efficient technologies, and data integration abilities.

PILLAR, for example, uses automated collection and extraction processes that save time while informing maintenance and operations. Even after collecting your assets with next-generation technology (AFES, or Automatic Feature Extraction Systems), we can integrate your data within your existing GIS software.

Give your organization the complete picture of your assets and share your budgetary costs with other departments to save money and do the public good.

Save Face

Plan, Inform, and Budget with Condition Rating Criteria for Transportation Infrastructure

Post author By Brad Timofeev
Post date January 8, 2021

Effective infrastructure asset management starts with an accurate assessment of inventory conditions. Using condition rating criteria enables managers to identify the appropriate treatments and the optimal time to maintain or correct issues. The result extends the life of infrastructure assets while controlling costs.

Drainage Ditch Damaged and Full of Trash

How Condition Rating Criteria Helps Transportation Asset Management

In essence, condition rating criteria takes the guesswork out of the management of assets by helping to inform, plan, and budget for cost-sensitive improvements. So, what do these criteria look like?

What is Condition Rating Criteria

Simply put, a condition rating criteria is a scale, or series of numbers, used to describe the condition or state of a particular asset. It can be based on a numeric scale or letter grade to maintain an objective standard. The objective standard allows municipalities and transportation managers to manage and meet desired conditions or network goals.

Why Some Departments Struggle with Condition Assessments

Most municipalities and departments of transportation lack specialized staff or staff are already stretched too thin. Rather than lean on them with further needs, PILLAR has specialized and well-trained assessors who skillfully review your assets with speed and timeliness. In-house teams often take time to actually locate and assess assets. With a partner, infrastructure municipalities can save time and money, and be sure that assets are being assessed properly and uniformly.

Meeting the real conditions and needs of public safety to prevent hazards on the road takes dedication and time. Without a partner, it can take time and be hard to locate, obtain measurements, perform assessments, and identify distresses. With rating criteria used while assessing your transportation assets, you never have to worry about how you will improve transportation conditions, prevent public outcry, or justify your operating or maintenance costs.

Rate Your Assets with PILLAR

PILLAR’s assessment process helps ensure that your assets are rated as accurately and efficiently as possible. We cultivate certainty about the condition of your assets as we help you to determine how you can meet state requirements for public safety. Get your assets evaluated for their condition and needs with any kind of rating system you need PILLAR to use. Our experts are ready to discuss your goals and systems. Email us at info@pillaroma.com or call with (276) 223-0500.

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Why You Need to Invest in Pavement Preservation

Post author By Brad Timofeev
Post date January 8, 2021

Pavement Preservation is a set of cost-effective treatments that are typically applied on pavements at their early stages and are relatively in good condition. Pavement Preservation allows transportation agencies to treat more lane miles with less cost, while lengthening the pavement’s service life. Transportation agencies adopting Pavement Preservation will extend the benefit of taxpayers’ dollars, among many other benefits.

Primary Benefits of Pavement Preservation

Transportation agencies are paying more attention to Pavement Preservation as their maintenance budgets get tighter each year. This led to the wide adoption of Pavement Preservation treatments within the agency’s operations and maintenance programs. Agencies adopting Pavement Preservation treatments record major benefits that include:

Improves the condition of pavements and investments
Remains cost-effective for service life and pavement performance
Quick application and reduces road user costs and closure times
Requires fewer resources and energy than reactive maintenance
Stops the future deterioration of the pavement under your watch

Arguments Against Pavement Preservation Just Don’t Fly

Despite significant benefits, there are some reasons cities and towns don’t invest in pavement preservation as much as reactive maintenance tasks.

Civilians typically prefer all new pavement with new layers of either asphalt concrete or cement concrete. At the early stages of preservation treatment, pavement appears rough and messy until the treatments completely cure. To combat public outcry, engineers must continuously meet with civilians to educate them on the pavement preservation process. Engineers should demonstrate how reactive maintenance is more time-consuming and expensive, costing tax payers more money to fix damaged roads in the long run (see Figure 1).

The primary reason transportation agencies in cities and towns don’t invest in pavement preservation is due to a lack of expertise and knowledge on preservation treatments. With the variety of preservation treatments available, engineers don’t include the preservation treatments in their pavement management programs because they lack the know-how to choose the proper treatments for all road conditions.

Operations and maintenance professionals default to focusing only on damaged pavements, ignoring pavements that are in good condition. Asset management budgets get eaten up by reactive maintenance when they could invest in preserving good roads, therefore investing less in reactive maintenance over time.

Some have the misconception that preservation treatments are an unnecessary expense. In reality, the treatments are quick while costs stay at a minimum. Some agencies in rural areas fear that hiring contractors with pavement preservation expertise will be more costly than local professionals, however, including pavement preservation in pavement management programs will extend budgets and the service life of pavements.

Partnering with PILLAR Pavement Management Engineers

Sometimes an organization doesn’t invest in pavement preservation due to a lack of expertise. There is a certain complexity to managing a network of roadways at different stages in their lifecycle that requires insightful data and a guiding hand.

PILLAR can play a role in assessing needs and making important maintenance decisions.

For example, PILLAR uses ratings to assess the condition of pavements, watching as the condition rating changes with time. This can be helpful to maintain a standard while getting the expertise needed for these numerous treatments.

Choosing the Right Pavement Preservation Treatments

When choosing treatments, PILLAR helps you map out roads, traffic volumes, and regions to make sure that roads are treated in line with the best treatment. There is a wide variety of possible preservation treatments that make the care and maintenance of each road extremely unique.

Every preservation plan is unique based on the special features of the roadway and pavements that make planning your preservation techniques somewhat complicated without a competent partner. PILLAR works with you to identify the condition of the road or pavement and then develop a series of interventions to lengthen the lifecycle of the road, save time, and conserve budgets. Some noteworthy and famous pavement preservation treatments that can be used include:

Crack Sealant
Slurry Seal
Chip Seal
Cape Seal
Microsurfacing (Latex)
THMACO

Find a Partner in Pavement Preservation and Asset Management

PILLAR is a unique firm. It’s the only asset management team devoted at its core with maximizing the lifecycle of your assets. By delivering asset data that informs operations and maintenance decisions at every step in the complex process, PILLAR strengthens your maintenance and preservation plans in ways that could really benefit your infrastructure asset management programs.

Contact PILLAR at info@pillaroma.com or (276) 223-0500 to start with the only asset management firm that merges industry expertise, next-gen technology, and public safety to bring you unparalleled data, service, and expertise.

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Hiring Operations & Maintenance Advisors is a Sound Investment.

Post author By Brad Timofeev
Post date January 8, 2021

Assessing and leveraging data on all infrastructure assets within your right-of-way for long term sustainability can be a challenge. As a result, it becomes even more difficult to achieve long term infrastructure goals. Operations & Maintenance advisors can be a highly effective resource in managing your assets and securing the proper funding you need for improving your assets.

PILLAR is the only asset management firm whose core business is dedicated to maximizing the lifecycles of your assets by collecting and delivering asset data that informs operations and maintenance decisions at every step of the process. PILLAR’s focus is holistic and goes beyond the typical pavements and bridges that include assets such as ditches, signs, markings, fence, etc. Optimal asset management includes all assets to give a much wider and inclusive perspective to account for all variables.

Know the Location of Your Assets

Pillar’s collection process combines old school approaches with cutting-edge technology to bring you a cost-effective way to collect massive amounts of inventory data quickly and accurately. Create digital 3-D representations of the right-of-way with PILLAR’s Mobile LiDAR Scanning that includes our Automated Feature Extraction System, extracting features almost as quickly as data is collected. At the same time, you’ll work with boots-on-the-ground maintenance professionals to go places machines and technology can’t reach.

Identify the Condition of Your Assets

PILLAR doesn’t just collect asset data; our professionals assess the data collected to justify the costs required to improve asset conditions. Experts use Condition Indices to measure Condition Rating Criteria for various asset types beyond pavements and bridges, such as pavement markings, guardrails, signs, slopes, fence, and tunnels. Using computer vision allows us to use Street Level Imagery from video stills to detect asset deficiencies. Our geospatial technologies provide in-depth point cloud analysis to give you a global view of the location and condition of your assets. Experienced maintenance staff also perform on-site field assessments and visual inspections.

Take control of Your Operations & Maintenance Plans

Unlike other firms, PILLAR advisors go beyond delivering asset data and go to work on planning strategies for your assets and the future. Data integration is seamless between databases as PILLAR works with numerous suites of geospatial software. You’ll receive solutions within many different contexts, including contract development, daily, weekly, and yearly work plans, bottom-up budgeting and estimating, and response plans in the case of an emergency.

Execute Your Plans with Expertise and Certainty

The PILLAR team not only helps develop your plans, we make sure you execute them. We can augment your staff to meet your program’s needs and oversee staff to ensure your asset management plans reach an optimal result. To fully see your plans through, our advisors can hire Operations and Maintenance managers to manage and control your budget, schedule, quality, as well as your incident, disaster, and weather response. Integration is seamless, coordinated, scheduled, and proactive.

Transform Your Operations & Maintenance Plans with PILLAR

Across the board, PILLAR advisors are a valued part of your team, working to inform you about your assets, offer data-driven decisions to secure proper funding, with in-the-field experience to hire and organize the staff necessary to carry out your plans so you don’t have to.

Stop guessing what to do with your Operations and Maintenance plans and be certain with PILLAR. Email us at info@pillaroma.com or call (276) 223-0500 to get started with the only asset management focused firm merging industry expertise, next-generation technologies, and commitment to public safety.

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Transforming Geospatial Data: The Power of Geomatics

Post author By Steve
Post date December 14, 2020

Technology is revolutionizing and transforming geospatial data. Going far beyond your typical data point collection and measurements, we can use evolving geospatial tools such as LiDAR, GPS/GNSS, and remote sensing to collect comprehensive and multi-dimensional geographic data. This data is extracted and analyzed to make data-driven decisions in the development of transportation asset management plans.

The incorporation of these technological tools has created some confusion in the geospatial industry causing the coining of a new term, Geomatics. Geomatics has entered our lexicon to cover the multiple ways and uses of the data derived from these geospatial tools by various disciplines.

Pillar uses these advancing technologies to yield enhanced efficiency and results. Read on to learn more.

The true and sometimes subtle differences between geospatial differences create confusion. Today, those differences grow even finer as mobile mapping, asset management, and unmanned aerial vehicles become integrated in daily operations.

Defining Geospatial: More than an object

Using the term geospatial indicates that an object or object set has a geographic component to it. Typically, this geographical component is identified in terms of coordinates (latitude, longitude, altitude). However, it can also relate to an addressed location such as a house number on a street in a specific city in a specific state or zip code. Most of the time the geographic component is attributed through global positioning system (GPS). However, satellite imagery or photogrammetry can be utilized to derive the geographic component.

Defining Geographic Information Systems (GIS): Controlling Ever-Growing Geospatial Data

Geographic information systems (GIS) manage, store, and integrate geospatial data collected from:

Satellite imagery
Demographics
Statistics
Road networks
Historical maps
Investigation, etc.

The information systems cataloging these data points helps professionals manipulate, analyze, and map their geospatial data. Through GIS, you can view, analyze, and house multiple layers of information to perform various volumetric and area calculations, create maps, and perform various types of modeling.

Since geospatial data is ever-growing, GIS becomes an essential tool for the management of valuable data for project planning and improved efficiency of research. But, when one goes beyond the collection and storing of important geospatial data, they enter the multidisciplinary science of geomatics.

Defining Geomatics: Going Beyond Geospatial Data with Interdisciplinary Science

Many people describe a wide selection of geography-relevant technology and disciplines as “geospatial.” However, “geomatics” involves more specifically the sciences of:

Surveying
LiDAR
Cartography
Satellite navigation
Photogrammetry
Mapping, etc.

While these are all excellent geospatial methods with formal procedures, geomatics also includes other sciences seemingly divorced from geo-inquiry such as:

Computer science
Mathematics
Engineering

To put it more simply, geomatics synthesizes spatial information with scientific application. It concerns the measurement of the Earth and technologies that help you act on that information. Geomatics goes beyond mere data to solve complex infrastructure problems with the latest technology.

Pillar is a dedicated transportation asset management firm focused on collecting, analyzing, and turning data into decisions for transportation infrastructure.

Our proprietary CAPE approach for asset management integrates geospatial data with geomatics to optimize and execute operations and maintenance plans for infrastructure organizations.

Asset Management Experts

PILLAR is the only asset management firm whose core business is dedicated to maximizing the lifecycles of your assets – delivering asset data that informs operations and maintenance decisions at every step of the process. We use your existing data to extend the life of your assets for roadways, bridges and tunnels. We assess data availability and accuracy to give you an operations and maintenance plan developed to optimize budgets and timelines.

At PILLAR, we’re ethically and completely committed to the safety and satisfaction of the public. We give unbiased and evidence-based recommendations and solutions for the improvement and maintenance of roadways.

Contact us at info@pillaroma.com or (276) 223-0500 to get started with the only asset management focused firm merging industry expertise, next-generation technologies, and commitment to public safety.

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VDOT Awarded Pillar Statewide Maintenance Consulting Services Contract

Post author By Steve
Post date September 8, 2020

The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) awarded Pillar the contract for Statewide Maintenance Consulting Services for the third consecutive time.

The Statewide Maintenance Consulting Services contract was established so VDOT can call on experienced firms for Roadway Maintenance Consulting and Staff Augmentation related services. It provides for additional support for Maintenance Contract Development and Management, Roadway Inspection Services, the Development of Manuals, Standard Operating Procedures, Reporting, Quality Assurance and any other non-professional service of Virginia’s Roadway Maintenance Planning and Development Program. While it is administered by the Maintenance Contract Management Program section in the Maintenance Division at Central Office, the contractor is expected to work at any location statewide.

Over the past two contracts covering the previous nine and a half years, we have developed a trusted partnership with VDOT by bringing maintenance consulting and staff augmentation services in eight of the nine VDOT districts with over 96 task orders completed throughout the Commonwealth.

We look forward to working at length with VDOT as our new contract spans for 3 years, with a 2-year renewal option. The entire Pillar team is eager to support and enhance maintenance operations throughout Virginia in our valued partnership with VDOT. Discover what Pillar can do for you and contact us for a comprehensive program review.

Photo Source: VDOT Instagram

Save Lives

Work Zone Safety Week 2020 – In the Time of Covid-19

Post author By Steve
Post date April 20, 2020

Despite the sharp drop in traffic volume, work zone activity does not relent. And it remains as dangerous as ever. Distracted or impaired drivers are still on the road. In our role as highway workers, the risk is clear and unmistakable.

We have tried to educate and inform our staff about these risks. Most of us have a distinct appreciation for the hazard. It starts with basic Defensive Driving and Defensive Positioning. When we are outside the vehicle in a highway setting, the risk is amplified exponentially. We know that a protective distance and position is our best defense when boots are on the ground.

Achieving this protection is easy to say, hard to practice. Each year there are triple digit fatalities in and around work zones of all types. They are uniformly preventable by workers and motorists.

Our society is basically suffering from two illnesses. The Covid Pandemic is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room right now. But it will recede eventually. The other illness is more insidious – poor driving skills by motorists, focused on all kinds of things, except Defensive Driving.

This illness is going to be a lot harder to control. In the rather sterile parlance of the US DOT, the class of “Unprotected Highway Users” includes pedestrian, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and US. Highway work zone ‘boots on the ground.’ The statistics for this class of ‘highway users’ are heading north at an eye-popping rate.

Symptoms of this illness include: oversized vehicles, cheap gas, distractions, generous speed limits, and poor driving skills. The result is pretty hair-raising for a pedestrian. Most of whom are not exactly blameless in this picture: wearing dark clothing, looking at their cell phone, bikes encroaching into travel lanes, etc. The end result is not good.

In summary, we know what the cure for this illness is. Defensive driving, high-visibility apparel, defensive positioning, focused attention on the driving equation, and a few other situational survival skills. Boring as they are, that’s the medicine. We can beat the Covid. That’s already in the works. The other illness is going to a lot harder to treat.

This week we remember the Highway Workers who sacrificed their lives in the interest of keeping roads safe. Their memory should inspire us to practice safety skills in all walks of life.