Sharing the Danger

    It was a typical Summer evening; temperature in the mid eighties, high humidity, and the twilight had faded away. I had set up all the advance warning signs, which involved the interstate and a major highway that merged. The changeable message board was a mile down the interstate to warn of the impeding lane closure, I was hooked to lowboy trailer, with a two man crew ready to start setting out barrels to close the lane. We were waiting for a hired police officer to help while we worked. We paid for them to help with dealing with traffic. A police car with flashing lights would slow traffic down, when nothing else would work. 

    I had already set up the lane closure on feeder highway, but hadn't tied it to the interstate. As we reached the interchange, we would complete the lane transition and go to work.

    He soon showed, I walked to his car, and explained what we had in mind. He said something at that time that always stuck in my mind: "They don't pay any more attention to you than they do a trash truck." He was right. Even though we had strobes on the vehicles, and an arrow board to direct traffic, too many drivers didn't pay attention to us any more than they did a trash truck. 

    I was glad to have him there. We didn't have the usual last minute lane changes by drivers. They respected the police car. They knew their uh-ohs would lead to something more than just an apology for scaring the crap out of us, and knocking down some barrels. 

    The officer stayed, until we pulled all the barrels to the shoulder before the 5:00 am morning rush started. I turned off the arrow board, and left it on the shoulder. A short trip down the interstate allowed me to swing the message board to where traffic couldn't see it. The morning crew would arrive later in the morning, and be ready to close the lanes after the rush was over. They had until 3:00 pm to pull the patches, replace the concrete, and achieve compressive strength before opening to traffic. The did so, and picked up all the traffic control devices. 

    It was a lot of preparation, and work, for three small patches in the paving. We lost money, but it was a district wide paving repair project, so we made it up on other sections. This finished our work in this area, and we soon moved a few dozen miles away to repair another section of highway.

    The officers words hit home. The strobe lights didn't demand the attention like what was on the police car. We were soon changing out strobe lights with high intensity light bars to alert drivers to the dangers ahead. We weren't dangerous, but their fellow drivers were; especially at night. Night is when the bars closed, and the drunks ventured home.