State Route 307 in the rural communities east of Scranton mostly has a 55 mph speed limit.
A Pennsylvania Department of Transportation work zone set up in the area for chip-seal road work is posted for 35 mph. But Pennsylvania State Police monitoring traffic through the construction area have clocked motorists driving as fast as 80 mph.
"Excessive speed compounds the dangers in work zones where crews are working in close proximity to traffic," said Jonathan Eboli, PennDOT's Assistant District 4 executive for maintenance.
And that 80 mph driver on Route 307 isn't the most egregious case Eboli can recall. He was told of an incident on the Casey Highway in Lackawanna County where a vehicle was caught going 93 mph in a work zone.
"Our message to the public is drive through every work zone like a member of your family is working there," Eboli said Wednesday during a press conference highlighting Operation Yellow Jacket, a statewide enforcement and awareness program launched jointly with PSP. The collaboration is now in its second year.
There were 1,216 crashes in work zones around the state last year, Eboli said, with 22 fatalities and 45 serious injuries. In April of this year, three construction workers were killed in York County when a truck driver crashed into them on Interstate 83.
Since 1970, 90 PennDOT workers have died in the line of duty, 11 of them from Northeastern Pennsylvania.
As part of Wednesday's event, PennDOT and PSP officials drove reporters into the Route 307 work zone to observe what workers see and experience, while State Police Cpl. Joe Holland clocked the speed of passing motorists using a radar gun.
Many seemed to be driving around or slightly below 40 mph, but others were veering into the 50s. Other troopers were stationed nearby to make traffic stops based on Holland's radar tracking.
That is exactly how Operation Yellow Jacket is supposed to operate.
Troopers monitor traffic in PennDOT maintenance trucks traveling within work zones. In addition to speeding, they are watching for tailgating and distracted driving. If the trooper observes a violation, they communicate to another trooper in a marked PSP patrol unit to initiate a traffic stop, officials said.
From April to June, Operation Yellow Jacket has resulted in 319 traffic stops in Lackawanna, Wayne, Susquehanna, and Pike counties alone, said Trooper First Class Robert M. Urban, Community Services Officer for Dunmore-based Troop R.
Those stops led to 419 citations and 86 warnings, Urban added.
PennDOT District 4 highway maintenance manager Gene Perry has been with the agency for 29 years. As he sat in a construction vehicle watching Holland using the radar gun, Perry reflected on his own experiences at construction sites.
"I've had a lot of near misses — close calls, we call them." Perry said, adding that he has been fortunate never to have been injured or had any injuries in his work zones.
"Distracted driving, speeding, have definitely become more of a problem over the years," Perry said. "This is a huge asset, our partnership with the Pennsylvania State Police, doing everything we can to protect our operators, our employees, the men and women of the department that are trying to make our roadways safer."
Eboli urged drivers to buckle up, slow down, and remember that troopers can be patrolling any work zone.
"Work zones are temporary, but your actions behind the wheel can last forever," Eboli said.
"These are not just numbers," he said of crash statistics. "They are lives lost, permanently altered, and families shattered."
