Road construction poses its own set of construction safety complexities that are very different from what you will get when working on skyscrapers or regular residential condos. The dangers change depending on whether you are working on an active road or are building a bridge over a high canyon.
Active roads pose more risks since there will always be a third party in your construction site — the road users. Managing traffic efficiently by using portable traffic lights in Australia and strategic barriers is the first step to accident-proofing the worksite. Here are some valuable pointers on how to keep an active road construction or repair site safer for both your workers and other road users.
Manage traffic flow
Most active road construction sites have to deal with the natural flow of vehicular traffic at all times. It is partly your responsibility to ensure that you impede the traffic in the least way possible. There are two ways to manage the traffic flow:
Create diversion roads
Diversions are by far the safest and most convenient way to get your construction site clear of third parties. It is your responsibility to dig up and maintain the diversion road, put up appropriate signs and lights to direct traffic to the new road that skirts the construction site and also ensure that the diversion road is usable at all times.
Diversions are mostly covered in loose gravel or just compacted soil hence the need for regular inspection to ensure that they are usable.
Keep one side of the road open
The problem with diversions is they need space to build. If you can’t get that extra space, you will have to construct the new road in phases such that traffic has access to at least one lane at any given time. In such cases, coordinating human traffic controllers at each side of the choke point will be your best shot at keeping traffic flow as smooth as possible.
Use barriers whenever possible
With a huge number of road construction processes involving heavy machinery and deep digging, stray vehicle entering an active site by mistake can be catastrophic. Placing concrete barriers or sandbags along the active construction areas serves as an extra safety feature that will definitely keep the public off your work area.
Sometimes, people might be tempted to evade traffic jams by driving on the sides, which in this case is your work area. Since you cannot post people all over the place, barriers will be your most efficient way to keep such daring people in check.
An organised road construction area is not only required by the government but also your first step to avoiding delays arising from accidents you could have easily averted. Controlling who enters an active construction site at any given time gives you the power to plan and also gives your workers the freedom to focus on building and not constantly looking out for clueless third parties in the construction site.
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