Construction deaths are still far too high, especially for those doing work on a road, street, or highway. Statistics suggest 2,103 people were killed at road construction sites between 2003 and 2019. In fact, being a bystander on a road is perhaps one of the most dangerous places to be.
The FHWA (Federal Highway Admin.) says 170 pedestrians and bicyclists were killed in work zone crashes in 2020, and 117 highway workers died in road construction site accidents in 2020 alone. That is far too many lives lost in one year alone.
Research conducted by experts at John Fitch affirms all of this, analyzing the most recent data from the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Admin.) to reveal the most frequent type of fatal car accident collisions.
Fitch makes a point to say most common type of fatal car accident collision across the U.S. does not involve a collision with a motor vehicle in transport. He says, “More fatal crashes involve other victims or objects such as pedestrians, cyclists, parked vehicles, animals, road objects etc. Pedestrians are one of the most vulnerable group of road users, accounting for a significant share of deaths from fatal road crashes.”
According to reports, an average of 23% of the world’s annual 1.35 million road casualties are pedestrians. The data shows that the most common type of road accident does not involve other moving vehicles, resulting in a total of 23,647 fatal incidents.
This is followed by ‘angled’ collisions, resulting in a total of 7,183 fatal accidents. An angled collision is when one vehicle strikes another vehicle at an angle somewhere between 90 degrees (a side-impact collision) and 180 degrees (a rear-end collision). The third most common type of collision is ‘front-to-front,’ resulting in a total of 4,295 fatal incidents.
Certainly, this will impact insurance claims, according to Fitch, but it is also important for construction professionals to keep in mind too.
He goes on to say, “Collisions not involving vehicles in transport, for example pedestrians, are often caused by the driver being distracted.”
Distracted driving is far too common today, taking far too many lives, which is something we need to address today. I have recommended several ways to reduce these roadway deaths including rebuilding our infrastructure to increase public safety of the systems we have in place, leverage new technologies like autonomous vehicles to reduce the number of crashes that happen on our roads, and educate drivers on the importance of not driving distracted. Certainly, this education and training needs to extend to workers who work near moving vehicles.
I am certain there are other ideas that can and should prevent road fatalities. What would you add? How can we minimize distracted driving? How can we get our workers home safely to their families every day? What steps do we need to take next?
Want to tweet about this article? Use hashtags #construction #IoT #sustainability #AI #5G #cloud #edge #futureofwork #infrastructure