Caltrans Acts to Improve Safety Zone : Transportation: In addition to an accident-prevention program for workers, it will also deploy chain-link nets at highway work sites.

All 20,000 state Department of Transportation employees statewide will “stand down” on Thursday and participate in a daylong safety program following the deaths of five highway workers this year due to wayward motorists.

The “safety stand down” was ordered by Caltrans Director James W. van Loben Sels and announced at an Orange County Transportation Authority meeting this week by local Caltrans District Director Russell Lightcap.

In a related development, Lightcap said the Orange County Caltrans office in September will deploy new, chain-link safety nets at highway work sites to protect workers. The nets are capable of stopping a car traveling 60 m.p.h. within a distance of 25 feet, Lightcap said.

The nets will be stationed around workers at the interchange of the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Orange freeways, and at the junction of the Santa Ana and Costa Mesa freeways, Caltrans spokesman Steve Saville said.

The nets cost about $20,000 each and have been used on the Harbor Freeway in Los Angeles.

In the last two decades, 52 Caltrans workers and 39 contract employees have been killed on the job. Five have died since the beginning of the year.

“We hope to raise the awareness of the motorist,” Lightcap told OCTA board members. “But we’ll also have workers take time in the day to refresh their safety skills and procedures.”

Lightcap said essential duties, such as dispatching emergency cleanup crews, would still be carried out during the stand down.

Two workers were killed within 24 hours of each other in April--one on the Orange Freeway in Fullerton and the other on the Long Beach Freeway in Paramount.

Earlier this month, a highway work crew foreman narrowly escaped being hit when a driver struck a forklift at the interchange of the Santa Ana, Orange and Garden Grove freeways.

It is difficult for highway workers to accept a death of one of their own, officials say, especially when many such accidents involve drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Caltrans workers will be examining ways to reduce their exposure to traffic accidents. They include minimizing the amount of time they are actually working next to traffic.

“One way to reduce deaths is to not be there,” Lightcap said.

Protecting Caltrans Workers Caltrans is testing new safety nets that would provide an added line of defense for highway workers. Here’s how the nets would stop cars: Typical safety net: Chain-link fence 60 feet long Four feet high Cost: $20,000 Source: California Department of Transporation