New law steepens speeding through workzone penalty
That quick trek through a road construction zone will cost an impatient driver more than a fine. A new state law takes effect today that calls for 15 days suspension of the driver’s license for a motorist caught driving at least 11 mph over the posted speed limit in a highway work zone where highway workers have installed signs with flashing white strobe lights.
“With the added consequences, we hope this will be an incentive to slow down and obey posted speed limits,” said Jay Ofsanik, safety press officer for the state Department of Transportation (PennDOT) in Uniontown. “The two biggest contributing factors to work-zone accidents are speeding and tailgating.”
Also, fines for speeding in work zones and for targeted violations are being doubled. Those violations include driving under the influence and failure to obey traffic devices.
Ofsanik said the danger is worse for motorists than highway workers, saying 80 percent of deaths in highway work zones are of motorists. Three highway workers and 24 other people lost their lives last year in work-zone crashes. In 2001, he said, 20 people died in work areas, and nine of those killed were construction workers. Two worked for PennDOT.
Ofsanik said reports of reckless driving in work areas vary.
PennDOT and state police cooperated last week on an initiative called Operation Yellow Jacket. State police posed as highway workers in three active work zones, including Route 119 in Fayette County. Ofsanik said the undercover police watched for speeding motorists and called ahead to marked police cars that stopped the violators. Ofsanik said 50 citations were issued in the three areas, combined.
He said that detail represented 50 people who could have lost their driver’s licenses for 15 days had the new law been in effect, although he said the purpose of the law is not to take licenses away but to stop people from driving too fast in these work zones.
The law also stiffens the penalty for the person charged with causing a death in a work zone. It adds five years to the prison sentence for a conviction of homicide by vehicle in work zones.
“Over the years, there just isn’t enough attention being paid, as you’re traveling through the work zones, to the speed as well as what’s going on in the work zones,” state Rep. Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, a member of the House Transportation Committee, told the Associated Press.
The first phase of this new law went into effect in February and requires motorists to turn on headlights in a posted work zone. He said PennDOT has placed signs to that effect at the beginning of work zones.
Those who commit this second violation face a $25 fine and may be cited if they are cited for another violation of the vehicle code.
Ofsanik said workers have made positive comments about the headlight requirement.
“They say they can see cars better, and motorists can see other motorists better,” he said.