Safety signs slide swiftly

Emergencies on Idaho highways inevitably result in a late-night callout for transportation technicians in operations to set up traffic control for incidents ranging from rockslides to car crashes.

After the call, ITD employees must first get to their shed and load the necessary equipment, usually large and heavy sign stands to display messages like “wreck ahead.”

Once they get on scene, they have to find a highway shoulder wide enough to accommodate the stand—which can be up to four feet long and a couple feet wide—and that’s not always available on rural highways like ID-97 and ID-3 in North Idaho.

Even if there is a suitable shoulder near the scene, it’s not always practical to transport the corresponding sign to the other side of the zone, which could result in an employee taking extra time to detour around the crash.

These issues led Miles Steven and Blake Charles of the St. Maries maintenance crew to repurpose an old camper’s awning, four bolts and scrap metal into a delineator post converter.

While wide shoulders aren’t easily found along the windy, non-commerce routes surrounding St. Maries, delineator posts are. The pair’s innovation easily slides onto a post and then holds the same sign without the space requirements.

This tiny innovation stores easily in the back of trucks and streamlines the set up process, allowing ITD crews to make highways safer much sooner.

 

 

Published 09-06-19