Drivers asked to take precautions in road work zones

Apr. 2—OTHELLO — Washington Department of Transportation officials are asking Washingtonians and visitors to exercise extra caution and follow traffic laws in work zones.

Mike Koehn, Washington Department of Transportation supervisor for the Moses Lake and Othello maintenance crews, said he was reminded of that recently when he went out to a work zone on Interstate 90.

"You forget how fast people just still go right by you," he said. "The crew just (said), 'Whatever.' And I (said), 'You saw how close that car was, right?' And they (said), 'If we stopped work every time somebody got close to the cone, we wouldn't be working,'"

April is "work zone awareness month" for WSDOT, and Koehn was one of the Department of Transportation employees who got together at the Othello maintenance facility Tuesday to talk about the rules of the road in a work zone.

The Othello crew is responsible for State Route 26 from the Vantage Bridge to the junction with U.S. Highway 395, and State Route 24 from Othello to the Vernita Bridge. The crews also maintain State Route 17 from Connell to West Providence Road, south of Moses Lake. Work zone crashes are more frequent i places with more traffic, but there were 14 in Grant County in 2024. There was one in Adams County.

From what the road crews see, people do need to slow down in a work zone. Omar Valdez, who has eight years on the crew, had some additional advice.

"Put your phone down. It's incredible how many people you see go through our work zone not even looking at us and they're looking at their phone," Valdez said.

Washington State Patrol trooper Daniel Mosqueda asked for the crew's estimate of the scope of the problem.

"One in every 10 cars, you think? Or more?" Mosqueda asked.

Valdez said he felt it was easily more than one in 10 vehicles.

Because drivers aren't always paying attention, the road crews have to.

"We always have someone that's out there on watch," Valdez said. "We're communicating, but we know that when we're out there, we have to be (watching). Everyone knows that when you're out there working in a work zone, you have to have your head on a swivel."

On a few occasions people have driven through the work zone, Valdez said. That happened to Chris Keifenheim, the North Central regional administrator, and he'll never forget it.

He was the project inspector on a job on State Route 28 near Ephrata, a job that required closing one lane. The driver, who was trying to avoid law enforcement, ignored the barriers.

"He got into our work zone, on the side that was closed, and went flying — they estimated 70 or 80 miles an hour — through the work zone, missed me by five or 10 feet," Keifenheim said. "Didn't hit anyone, fortunately, but it was a close call for a lot of people."

The crews are always talking with each other, Koehn said, keeping everybody informed of what's coming. There are also daily safety briefings, going back over the conditions, looking at what worked and what needs to be improved.

The road crews work to fit their schedule to the traffic conditions, Valdez said.

"A lot of us are real familiar with the areas that we work with, and we know when the high traffic is, so sometimes we take our time in the morning to let traffic go through. If it's a holiday or something and we're out there working, or during school times, we usually wait until all the traffic is gone," he said.

Grant and Adams counties are growing, and traffic has increased as a result.

"Especially during harvest season. We're out there working during harvest, and the traffic is non-stop," Valdez said. "You go to stop traffic for two minutes, and you got a line a mile or two miles long."

Drivers should slow down, of course, but there are other rules of the road to follow. There are warning signs posted well before the work zone and drivers should heed the warning to slow down, Koehn said. Eduardo Baltazar, who's part of the road crew, said not all drivers understand the English signs, but that an orange sign should be a signal to slow down regardless.

PJ Suarez, who's also on the road crew, said the goal is simple.

"At the end of the day, we want everybody to go home," he said.