Road Maintenance

The off road construction on Campbell Hill, Westbank side of the Kelowna bridge on Highway 97. Equipment and personnel are not on the highway or possess hazardous physically access the vicinity of traffic lanes on that stretch of highway unless their stupidity violates common sense. Their work area is protected off to the side with crash cement barriers throughout the area…. So why the signs “construction zone”?

I like to talk about road safety with people I meet because it often ends up producing a good topic for these articles. Yesterday I stopped to speak with the road maintenance contractor operating the mower clearing the shoulder of the roads in my neighbourhood. He was quick to offer three observations, heed the signs, keep your distance and wait behind when there is oncoming traffic.

Have you ever wondered why road maintenance contractors spread a mixture of gravel and crushed stone on B.C.'s highways in winter rather than using just sand? At first glance, it would appear that sand would be the better choice as it does not damage windshields the way gravel and crushed stones will. However, it's not that simple, and this TranBC web page explains why.

I commute on hwy 19 daily. The road has been maintained with tar strips rather than resurfacing. In the wet weather what Im seeing is the ruts (worn into the driven part) in the right lane are holding up to 20mm of standing water sometimes for hundreds of meters at a time. Pulling into the left lane provides a safer drive even at 30km below the posted limit.

Options?

Hey, that machine is driving on the wrong side of the road! Can that utility truck park like that while they fix the overhead wires? These are just two of similar questions that the public often ask. The answer is yes, as long as it is done safely.

The case of Billabong Road & Bridge Maintenance v Brook is a B.C. Supreme Court appeal of a conviction that saw both parties found 50% at fault after a single vehicle collision. The provincial court judge found the road maintenance company partly at fault for the collision because it had not sanded the slippery roadway.

The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure announces a new tool in the battle to remove snow quickly and economically from BC's highways. The tool is a standard plough truck towing a plough trailer. The machine can be operated by the lone driver, clear 2 1/2 lanes at a single pass and spread traction materials at the same time.

Our strata has about a mile of private road and we have our own pickup truck rigged up for snow plowing. The vehicle is not licensed as the intent is for use solely on our posted private road. However, I have come to learn that the operator, as a favor to neighbours outside our strata, has taken to plowing some of the public road, an area rarely addressed on a timely basis by MOT plows.

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 641: Guidance for the Design and Application of Shoulder and Centerline Rumble Strips explores the design and application of shoulder and center line rumble strips as a crash reduction measure.

We are very fortunate here in British Columbia when it comes to workplace safety. In general, if our workplace is not safe, we feel entitled to apply pressure to our employers to make it so. If another person's workplace is not safe we wonder why someone is not doing something about it.