INDIANAPOLIS — Every year, workers are killed in construction zones on Indiana highways.
Many more are injured.
In the next few weeks, the state is launching a program to measure how fast drivers are going through highway construction zones and then writing tickets when they’re going too fast.
The program starts Aug. 14 and will use cameras in construction zones to take photos of drivers’ license plates if they’re speeding.
The first area to get those cameras will be a construction zone on Interstate 70 in Hancock County near the Mount Comfort Road exit.
“I never go fast in a construction zone," Tasha Poston said.
That’s because Poston knows what’s at stake — not just the lives of drivers and their passengers traveling through construction zones on the highway, but the men and women working in them.
Poston’s brother, Justin Nance, was killed nearly six years ago while working in a construction zone in northern Hamilton County.
A semi driver didn’t follow arrow boards telling him to move over because he was entering a construction zone. The semi hit construction equipment, which then hit and killed Nance.
“He has three kids he never got to see go to college, never graduate, never go to prom. Never. Nothing. He won’t walk his daughter down the aisle,” Poston said.
According to INDOT, last year alone, 33 people were killed in construction zones on Indiana’s highways, and close to 1,800 were injured.
INDOT hopes installing technology to monitor drivers’ speeds will make a difference.
Under the Safe Zones program, cameras will take photos of vehicle license plates. If they’re going 11+ mph over the speed limit, drivers will get a warning. That warning is only during a pre-enforcement phase.
After that comes fines — $75 for a second offense and $150 for each one after that.
“I don’t think there should be a warning. I think it should be a ticket first and then, maybe they’ll realize we’re taking this seriously. These are people’s lives,” Poston said.
States like Maryland and Pennsylvania have similar programs that INDOT officials say seem to be working.
Two years after Maryland launched its program, speeding violations in construction zones went down 80%, and crashes in Maryland construction zones that led to injury or death were at the lowest they’d been in 10 years.
In Pennsylvania, the first year of the program saw a 19% drop in crashes on highways there.
Poston hopes Indiana’s program will get results, too. She knows lives depend on it.
“They just need to slow down,” Poston said.
The pilot program lasts five years, and INDOT said it’s going to share the information collected from it with the traveling public and lawmakers so they can see whether the program is working to reduce crashes in these construction zones.