Assessment of the damage to British Columbia’s interior roads and infrastructure from the recent floods is just getting underway. It doesn’t take an engineering degree to know that the cost estimate for repairs is going to be in the billions. Cost calculations are piling up and a few experts have already said this is going to be the biggest repair bill in B.C. history.
The highways linking our province to the rest of the country are already a top priority but the repairs will likely take years to complete.
It’s going to require yet another level of patience and understanding from people already battered by a year of forest fires, floods and oh yeah … COVID.
On the front line of the rebuilding efforts will be highway construction crews and right at the pointy end will be the safety flaggers trying to keep them safe.
Highway flagging is a dangerous prospect. Just last September a drunk driver barrelled through road construction at speed south of Nanaimo, killing a paver and severely injuring a flagger.
In August of this year a flagger was critically injured after being struck by a cement truck in Burnaby.
In Burnaby back in 2017, a disturbing dashcam video showed an SUV driver, who had been waiting to cut back in on a line of vehicles moving through road construction, simply driving over the flagger trying to hold the driver in place.
Turns out the driver was in the midst of a psychotic episode and had struck another flagger two blocks down the street. The driver was found not criminally responsible by reason of a mental disorder and turned over to the custody of the B.C. (mental health) Review Board.
Back in 2018 on Highway 1, just south of Sicamous, a flagger who was setting up signs on the roadway was beaned in the head with a full can of beer thrown by the occupants of a passing car. Fortunately his hard hat and safety glasses saved him from serious injury.
Flaggers have been complaining loudly about these issues for years. It doesn’t seem to have done much good. It’s still open season, apparently.
Between 2011 and 2020, 12 roadside workers were killed in B.C. and 207 more were injured. The construction trade made up 51% of all roadside injury claims, with flaggers accounting for nearly three-quarters of that number, according to B.C.’s Winter Driving Safety Alliance.
It’s time to put the word out, again. Disobeying a flagger is not an option. Currently, B.C.’s Motor Vehicle Act levies a $196 fine and three demerit points for ignoring them. It doesn’t seem like enough. There should at least be a more severe consequence for those drivers who deliberately ignore a flagger’s direction — and if you think that’s a rarity, look on Youtube.
With the massive amount of reconstruction that the province’s interior highway system will be facing, flaggers are going to be on the receiving end of a lot of frustration. Extra police enforcement would certainly be in order. But with scant traffic patrol resources available already, the cops won’t be able to offer much help.
When travelling in Europe a few years ago I saw that there were very few human flaggers. Instead they use robotic devices called Automated Flagger Assistance Devices or AFADs. They’re basically a portable traffic control light with a robotic lowering arm with a flag on the end. It’s controlled remotely by a person who is safely away from the road.
They’re probably not cheap. But when you consider that just this past May a B.C. Supreme Court judge awarded a flagger $527,373 for injuries she sustained after being hit by a truck in Quesnel, a robot seems like a pretty good deal.
For those who have to travel over those beaten up interior paths during the next year or so, remember there’s good people out there doing some of the dirtiest, most stressful jobs we can lay on someone. Be patient.
The only advice I’d offer to flaggers is to always play it safe. Don’t do the exaggerated paddle wave or, worse, stick the paddle across a car’s windshield because some jerk is a few K’s over the limit. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.
It could be your basic road rager, a guy who’s just stolen that car or, as we saw in Burnaby, someone who is in a full on mental crisis. Don’t try to control every single driving incident you witness because one day you might be dead right.
