Construction zone speeding

I have lived and worked between the central Okanagan and north Okanagan for the past 28 years. During this time I have witnessed the influx of Albertans each summer. The tourists they don’t know where they are going, they don’t obey the laws and drive recklessly. Well I have to argue this point. 

I work as a traffic control person (flagger) and I find the BC drivers are the worst for speeding through a construction zone. 

I am sure many of you have noticed the signs on all major roadways, the ones that tell you to slow down and move over. This does not only apply to emergency personnel, it also applies to road workers anyone with red, blue, amber or white flashing lights. 

If the speed limit is above 70km/h you need to slow to a maximum of 70km/h and move over before passing. If the speed limit is 70km/h or below you need to slow to 40km/h maximum and move over when passing. If it is a construction zone and there are signs out and a flagger present on the road you are required to obey their instruction. 

If their sign says “slow” and you are on a regular roadway with a 60km/h speed limit the maximum is now 40km/h but the slow sign signifies that you need to be under that speed. If our sign says “stop” it means stop in your lane and wait there until we direct you to do otherwise. The reason we have a sign that says “be prepared to stop” is because we are working with a crew and at any time a member of that crew could possibly step out or drive a piece of equipment out from between vehicles. We try to anticipate these crew members, but if our focus is on trying to slow down someone who is speeding into our zone we obviously are not concentrating on our crew as well as we would like to. This can have disastrous consequences. 

Contrary to popular belief, most flaggers don’t want to hold you up and make you late. In most circumstances we want to keep traffic flowing, but quite frankly if you are going to speed into my zone putting the lives of my crew, my fellow employees and myself at risk you will more likely be having to stop. If I am working with my partner alternating traffic from both directions and one car approaches slow and the other direction fast we will send the slow vehicle first. This is our way of saying thank you to those who treat us with respect.  

Over this last month I have personally noticed that the red and white license plates of Alberta are the ones I have a lot more respect for when they drive through my zones as they are a lot more likely to be going slow. Obviously Alberta is doing something right maybe its just the fact that certain things are enforced a lot more in Alberta than BC does but whatever it is BC police need to start doing it too.   

Mandy Petrie