State Department of Transportation recognizing Work Zone Safety Week at visitors centers statewide to emphasize highway work zone safety
ALBANY, GA -- If you stop at some of the Georgia's visitors centers this week, you may notice a lot of orange: Orange soft drinks, carrots, orange cookies … and traffic cones.
It’s a part of the nationwide Work Zone Safety Week.
Georgia Department of Transportation officials say close to 700 people died nationwide in highway construction work zones in 2009, with 85 percent of those being drivers and passengers.
That’s why this week, GDOT wants to emphasize how drivers can keep everyone safe in highway construction areas.
“The biggest problem we have with that is motorist speeding through the work zone, not slowing down, and running what we've reduced the speed to; so speeding and then the other thing is texting and talking on the phone,” says Craig Solomon with the Georgia Department of Transportation.
Officials say 57 GDOT workers have died in work zones since 1973.
The Georgia Department of Transportation is partnering with the Department of Economic Development to promote the safety campaign, “Go Orange!”
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