Characteristics of worker accidents on NYSDOT construction projects Satish Mohan a,1 , Wesley C. Zech b, * a Dept. of Civil, Structural, and Environ. Engrg, SUNY at Buffalo, 223 Ketter Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States b Dept. of Civil Engineering, Auburn University, 233 Harbert Engineering Center, Auburn University, AL 36849, United States Received 11 April 2005; accepted 15 June 2005 Available online 28 September 2005 Abstract Introduction: This paper aims at providing cost-effective safety measures to protect construction workers in highway work zones, based on real data. Two types of accidents that occur in work zones were: (a) construction work area accidents, and (b) traffic accidents involving construction worker(s). Methodology/Results: A detailed analysis of work zone accidents involving 36 fatalities and 3,055 severe injuries to construction workers on New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) construction projects from 1990 to 2001 established that five accident types: (a) Struck/Pinned by Large Equipment , (b) Trip or Fall (elevated) , (c) Contact w/Electrical or Gas Utility, (d) Struck-by Moving/Falling Load, and (e) Crane/Lift Device Failure accounted for nearly 96% of the fatal accidents, nearly 63% of the hospital-level injury accidents, and nearly 91% of the total costs. These construction work area accidents had a total cost of $133.8 million. Traffic accidents that involve contractors’ employees were also examined. Statistical analyses of the traffic accidents established that five traffic accident types: (a) Work Space Intrusion , (b) Worker Struck-by Vehicle Inside Work Space, (c) Flagger Struck-by Vehicle, (d) Worker Struck- by Vehicle Entering/Exiting Work Space, and (e) Construction Equipment Struck-by Vehicle Inside Work Space accounted for nearly 86% of the fatal, nearly 70% of the hospital-level injury and minor injury traffic accidents, and $45.4 million (79.4%) of the total traffic accident costs. Conclusions: The results of this paper provide real statistics on construction worker related accidents reported on construction work zones. Potential preventions based on real statistics have also been suggested. Impact on Industry: The ranking of accident types, both within the work area as well as in traffic, will guide the heavy highway contractor and owner agencies in identifying the most cost effective safety preventions. D 2005 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Accident characteristics; Construction accidents; Highway work zones; Traffic accidents; Work zone safety 1. Introduction Construction work zones have two types of accidents that involve construction workers: (a) accidents occurring in the work area—hereinafter called work area accidents, and (b) traffic accidents, which involve a motorist and construction worker(s)—hereinafter called traffic accidents. The safety measures for work area accidents are distinctly different from the safety measures for traffic accidents. In order to arrive at effective safety solutions for these accidents, it is necessary to examine real accident data to understand the major contributors, and to rank them in order of accident severity. At this time, research on worker accidents in highway work zones is very limited. The U.S. work zone accident data gathered from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) does not provide data separately on traffic accidents versus work area accidents. This paper fulfills this gap. This paper has analyzed 22 fatal work area accidents, and 2,139 nonfatal work area accidents that were reported on New York State Department of Transportation (NYS- DOT) construction projects over 12 years (1990 to 2001). Also, 12 years of NYSDOT traffic accident data involving contractor employed workers, which includes 14 fatal traffic accidents and 880 nonfatal traffic accidents from 1990 to 2001, have been examined. This research will help in 0022-4375/$ - see front matter D 2005 National Safety Council and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jsr.2005.06.012 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 334 844 6272; fax: +1 334 844 6290. E-mail addresses: smohan@eng.buffalo.edu (S. Mohan), zechwes@eng.auburn.edu (W.C. Zech). 1 Tel.: +1 716 645 2114x2412; fax: +1 716 645 3773. Journal of Safety Research 36 (2005) 353 – 360 www.elsevier.com/locate/jsr www.nsc.org