The American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) have launched an all-new National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse website: www.WorkZoneSafety.org.
Established in 1998, the Clearinghouse has become the world’s largest online resource of free information, handling more than 250,000 requests annually, according to ARTBA. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute manages the facility’s day-to-day operations and led the website redesign.
More than 850 people were killed and 44,000 injured during 2020 in roadway work zone accidents—the highest in two decades.
On average, federal funds support 15,300 construction projects annually, according to FHWA data.
ARTBA’s Chief Economist Dr. Alison Premo Black estimates that there will be an additional 4,000 new work sites over the next two years as IIJA-related projects ramp up, underscoring the need for greater awareness of this public health issue, and ongoing public and private sector commitment to significantly reducing the number of safety incidents.
The new website features a modern interface, easier navigability, improved search function capability, and expanded user-demanded content, including:
- Centralized crash, injury, fatality, and congestion data so users have a complete picture of the issues affecting safety.
- Dashboards and info-graphs to illustrate trends over the past six years.
- Interactive maps with national and state traffic data, laws, training and policies, crash information and statistics, and worker fatalities and injuries – including charts showing how workers are killed.
“Comprehensive data is now easy to locate and understand and users can search through thousands of records to find relevant material typically in less than a minute,” says Brad Sant, the association’s SVP for safety and education. “We urge public and private sector professionals to use the Clearinghouse often. Together, we can save lives.”
Source: ARTBA
