Working Toward Improving Work Zones

With more than 1,000 work zones statewide again this year, MoDOT continues to improve practices and materials for better work zones. New safety vests, sign covers and flagger assistance devices will improve work zone safety and increase productivity.

New yellow safety vests with orange trim and silver reflective striping will improve daytime and nighttime visibility of workers in work zones.

“Hopefully these vests will decrease injuries and deaths of our workers,” said Scott Stotlemeyer, state traffic engineer. “Last year we lost two employees in work zone related crashes and we want to prevent that from happening again this year.”

District 10 is experimenting with new lightweight sign covers that are placed over signs along the roadside that don’t apply in work zones. Past sign covers have caused damage to the sign face and often don’t fit the sign properly, causing them to come off. The new covers will eliminate these concerns in addition to providing a variety of other benefits.

“These new covers are great, they are stretchy and act like a sock conforming to the different size signs,” Stotlemeyer said. “This will improve safety because they will stay on the signs and will last longer.”

In addition, several districts are using automated flagger assistance devices to improve safety and increase efficiency in work zones by freeing up the workers that would usually flag to do other tasks.