April 26, 2024
By Lane Kimble
LODI, Wis. — If you or your company has an active highway project anywhere between Eau Claire and Green Bay, chances are a WTBA staff member drove through it this week.
Covering more than 600 miles round trip to hold three news conferences in three days, WTBA and its supporters launched a crucial new education program, Work Zone Safe Wisconsin (workzonesafe.com).
WZSW is a free online platform that teaches teens (and all drivers, for that matter) the latest laws and rules to follow when driving through a work zone. Its launch comes the week after WisDOT released 2023’s work zone crash statistics: nine deaths, more than 700 injuries, and more than 2,100 accidents.
“We decided we were going to do something more than complain about it. We were going to put our money where our mouth is,” WTBA Executive Director Steve Baas said.
LAUNCHING IN LODI (TUESDAY)
There was an emotional heaviness during the first stop of the tour, just west of the I-39/90/94 and Highway 60 interchange project Tuesday in Lodi.
Becki Slater made sure everyone there – reporters, photographers, and supporters – walked away knowing a little bit about her son, Zane Reilly.
“I knew my son was a good person. I knew he was an empathetic person and a good friend to all,” Slater said, speaking in the past-tense.
Reilly was working along a Sauk County highway in 2022 when a driver fell asleep, smashed through Zane’s work site, and hit and killed him. He was just 25.
“It wasn’t just a loss for our family, it was a loss for so many people. No families, no communities, no companies should have to go through this,” Slater said.
Hoping to prevent at least one family from experiencing what she did, Slater sees Work Zone Safe Wisconsin as an important tool in teaching drivers about the real people behind the barrels.
In addition to reading up on rules, regulations, and signage, students must watch 14 videos about real-life people in Wisconsin impacted by work zone crashes before taking quizzes that ask specific questions about those people.
“(Work Zone Safe) lets them get acquainted with the faces and names behind the stories so that this becomes, not a theoretical exercise for our drivers, but something very personal for them,” WTBA Executive Director Steve Baas told reporters.
OSSEO (WEDNESDAY)
Jim Hoffman plans to hear some of those personal stories himself.
The Hoffman Construction Company CEO smiled as he saluted the WZSW program during Wednesday’s news conference in Osseo, telling the crowd he would take the course, too.
Hoffman has a worksite nearby on I-94.
“Certain things are in your control, certain things you can do: you can put your phone down, you can respect the speed,” Hoffman said. “But when you’re a construction worker, there’s certain things that are out of your control. What’s out of your control is what happens on the other side of those barrels.”
CLICK TO VIEW A PHOTO GALLERY FROM ALL 3 NEWS CONFERENCES
The platform’s flexibility is one of its standout features: anyone can take the course anywhere at any time. It’s free (thanks to WTBA and a host of incredible sponsors) and simply requires you to login and get started.
“This happens every day in Wisconsin,” Eau Claire County Highway Commissioner Jon Johnson said of work zone incidents. “We’re very happy for the education to get to the root cause of some of the teen driving challenges we’re seeing. That’s a great leap forward.”
GREEN BAY (THURSDAY)
It’s hard for Grant Klumb to look ahead without looking back. Back to that fateful day Zane Reilly died.
“We all remember exactly where we were. It resonates with us still every day,” Klumb said. “We have our weekly safety meetings and every weekly safety meeting we go through what happened that day.”
Klumb owns Five Star Energy Services, the company Reilly worked for. Now, his crews have black sweatshirts with Zane’s name on them: “Zone Awareness is Not Enough.”
“You can do everything right. You can control how deep that hole is, you can control putting a shore box in, you can control your cones, your barricades, you can control your locates… But you can’t control that driver. Your head, unfortunately, has to be on a swivel,” Klumb said.
It’s too early to know how much Work Zone Safe Wisconsin will help, but chances are good it’ll reach a lot of people. Thousands of teens in Oklahoma, which is the only other state in the country to adopt the program, take a similar course every month. A $500 scholarship, generously funded by the Wisconsin County Highway Association, should generate even more interest, too.
Ultimately, though, it’s on all of us to learn, think, and change.
“Keep your eyes up, keep your phones down, buckle up and slow down and let’s bring everyone home safe from their work zones every day,” Baas said.
Wisconsin media coverage of WTBA news conferences
Channel 15 Madison: New Wisconsin driver’s ed course highlights construction workers
WKOW: Nonprofit group launches online test geared at teaching work zone safety to students
Channel 3000: WTBA launches work zone safety course
Channel 8000: New online course teaches work zone driving safety
ABC News 18: WTBA launches new drivers ed work zone safety program
NBC 26: A new approach to try and cut down on distracted drivers
FOX 11: ‘Work Zone Safe Wisconsin’ revs up road safety
WBAY: WTBA launches instructional guide to educate drivers on work zone safety
