INDOT and State Police urge caution around road work zones

LAPORTE COUNTY -- ABC57 spoke to Cassandra Bajex, Public Relations Director for INDOT Northwest, and Sergeant Ted Bohner of the Indiana State Police regarding the importance of safety in work zones as work zone season begins in Indiana.

From a busy work zone on I-94, Sgt. Bohner told us "I think every day, when we drive, we put a lot of faith and trust in everybody that's driving around us to do the right thing. When we get into a work zone... that's just amplified exponentially. Because not only are you having to put trust in in other drivers, but the workers in the zone are as well, and, and the margin for error in a work zone is so small, it's so much smaller than it is elsewhere, it just becomes extremely important. And speed is one of the major factors that that we have in work zone crashes; speed, distracted driving and just not paying attention."

Cassandra Bajex, of INDOT, said "...We really just want people to stay alert and drive distraction free. ...Stay alert and then follow the signage that you see. You know, move over if there's going to be a lane close. Make sure that you know which lane is going to be closed so that you can move over. Make sure that you're obeying the speed limit ... That you're slowing down look to see where crews are, so you can give them a lot of space to work."

Sgt. Bohner shared what he has seen in his work "With me being in the role that I have, being a state trooper, we see a lot of what happens when things go wrong in a work site. We see, see a lot of injuries, a lot of death and destruction, and that's, that's what we want to avoid by having everybody kind of get on board and do their part to keep things safe."

Finally, Bajex wanted everyone to know this "We do have our app, INDOT Trafficwise, or our website, where people can see current traffic information, and that does include lane closures or road closures. And so, if people want to know ahead of time where we might be having road construction, that's something that they could check and see. You know where that might be. And that way they already know ahead of time that they might be running into some of that. We always encourage people to check that out.