Pushing safety: Pennsyslvania Turnpike reduces crashes in work zones

Bill McGuigan had no idea when he went to work as an equipment operator for the Pennsylvania Turnpike in June 2014 that he was about to become a key figure in the agency’s safety history.

Shortly after 8 a.m. that day, McGuigan, 61, was killed when a speeding tractor-trailer driver veered into the closed lane where he was working in Chester County and struck him and another worker, who had minor injuries. That tragedy and other work-zone incidents jolted the agency, which set up a special work-zone safety subcommittee to improve practices and try to prevent future incidents.

Just over 11 years later, the agency’s emphasis on protecting its workers — and all motorists — has shown solid results. There were 327 work-zone crashes on the turnpike in 2015 compared to 176 last year and a low of 113 during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, when driving was reduced substantially.

“I’m even reluctant to talk about it because I don’t want to be a jinx,” said Craig Shuey, the agency’s chief operating officer. “We’ve cut work-zone crashes by more than 20%.”

Tom Macchione, director of traffic engineering and operations who formerly led the safety subcommittee, called that a dramatic improvement.

“If you look at it nationwide, that’s unheard of,” he said. “We’re proud of what we’ve done, but we’re not there yet. One is too many.”

Shuey and Macchione said the agency has done a number of things to improve safety. Over the years, it developed uniform standards for the way work zones look, with signs on the right and the speed limit usually 55 miles an hour instead of 70; deployed attenuator trucks with crash cushions on the rear at the entrances of work zones to take the brunt of any wayward vehicle; and set up cameras and speed detection equipment to catch speeders in work areas.

“It wasn’t any one thing [that reduced crashes],” Shuey said. “It was all of those things.”

Macchione said it’s important to keep drivers comfortable.

“If a customer travels from Ohio to Pennsylvania, they see the same thing,” he said.

Shuey added, “We want to make sure it is easy to know what to do.”

Shuey said improving safety on a roadway is different from a factory setting, where the employer knows the employees they hire and can control who visits the facility.

“In our factory, we have zero control over who is on our roadway,” Shuey said. “We don’t know what condition they might be in, what attitude they have.”

Speeding in work zones became so commonplace — and dangerous — that the state authorized a pilot program in 2018 to use cameras to detect motorists speeding in work zones or the turnpike or other state roads and send them warnings. The state Legislature approved a permanent program that began in March 2023 and issues a warning for the first offense of speeding more than 11 miles above the speed limit, followed by fines for repeat offenders.  

The pilot found that work zone crashes declined by as much as 50%, driving above the speed limit by 11 miles or more dropped by 47%, and only 17% of drivers who received a warning became repeat offenders.

Macchione said another problem is dealing with distracted drivers — people looking at their cellphones, which became illegal earlier this year in Pennsylvania; talking with passengers; or even reading a book while driving. It became so obvious that some drivers aren’t paying attention at all that last year the agency started deploying super loud air horns either on the backs of the attenuator trucks or ahead of work zones to blast drivers they see who aren’t watching the road.

It has four warning trucks in use across the state. The truck at Donegal sounded its horn 86 times between September and May.

Additionally, the Legislature last year authorized construction vehicles to add bright green lights to their amber warning lights because some drivers apparently don’t notice the amber lights anymore.

Through a collaboration between the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the turnpike, Pennsylvania became the second state to offer a training video for driving through a work zone. Now, it’s available online and included in some driver training courses, but the agencies would like to make it mandatory as part of the test for a driver’s license.

“We need you to slow down for worker safety, but it’s for your own safety, too,” Shuey said. “Most of the people hurt in work zones are the drivers themselves.”