Dive Brief:
- Maryland Gov. Wes Moore signed a bill into law April 9 that will double the maximum fine starting in June for drivers who speed in road work areas within the state from $40 to $80, Moore’s office announced. The law, and the new fines, will take effect on June 1.
- A second set of punitive measures, which will take effect in January 2025, will fine drivers on a sliding scale, from $60 to $500, that will correspond to how far over the speed limit they were at the time of their citation, per the law. The fines will be doubled if workers are present.
- The law, known as the Maryland Road Worker Protection Act of 2024, seeks to protect workers and initiate a culture change among motorists to drive safer, per the release.
Dive Insight:
The bill was signed just before the start of National Work Zone Awareness Week, from April 15-19, which advocates for safer driving and protection for construction employees who navigate the dangers of road work.
The new fines and regulations come as Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller gathered with tradesworkers on April 16 to remember a crash on I-695 that killed six laborers in 2023. One of the drivers involved, who police said was speeding at 121 mph when he clipped another driver, was sentenced last month to 18 months in prison.
The story grabbed national headlines and served as a sobering reminder of how dangerous these spaces can be for workers — 956 people died in crashes amid work zones nationwide in 2021, the most recent data available from the National Work Zone Safety Information Clearing House.
Each day there are an average of 300 highway construction, maintenance and utility work zones with more than 1,000 workers operating in Maryland. The state had more than 1,200 work zone crashes in 2023, and there have been 250 so far in 2024, per Lt. Gov. Miller’s release. These accidents resulted in 14 deaths.
“Almost every day we see crashes or near misses in our highway work zones,” said Paul J. Wiedefeld, the state’s transportation secretary, wrote in the release. “Our goal is to build and maintain a safe, efficient and equitable transportation system that serves all users. To do that, we must work together to provide our dedicated highway professionals with the attention — and protection — they deserve.”
During the week designed to bring awareness to safety on these jobs, three workers were killed on April 18 after a driver entered an active work zone on I-83 in Fairview Township, Pennsylvania.