Serious Traffic Accidents | Interstate 89 Construction Zone

Joe: 106.7 WIZN and that is Foreigner “Feels Like The First Time”. You heard Pink Floyd in “Hey You” before that. I’m Joe Vega here with you on your “Wednesday Rock and Ride Home.” I called my friend Ben Barry from Martin, Harding and Mazotti. Ben, hello.

Ben: Joe, How are you doing?

Joe: I’m excellent. So, I was talking earlier about this situation on Interstate 89. There have been actually two… This past week there were two pretty serious traffic accidents there, pretty much in this exact same spot. It’s where they’re doing the construction and where the interstate there, it separates the two spots. And I’ve driven through that. It’s very confusing.

Ben: The place that you’re speaking about I believe is between Exit 16 and 17.

Joe: Yeah.

Ben: Certainly, any municipality that’s doing roadside work has a duty to keep the safety equipment that they’re using to warn drivers of road hazards and construction zones. They have a duty to put those in safe places. The two vehicles that were involved in the accident were tractor-trailer trucks so I don’t know if there’s something particular about the placement of the warning signs.

Joe: Right. Because there was an audit done in terms of the safety of that situation that’s going on.

Ben: There is or there were planning to have an audit but yes, any time there’s a situation with a roadway that looks particularly dangerous, usually, the municipality will send an engineer out to do an audit on the safety and to see if there’s anything that can be changed. It’s likely they’re gonna move some of these warning signs.

Joe: Right.

Ben: And so hopefully, that particular stretch of the roadway will become more safe and also, they will be able to keep the signs somewhat close to where they were.

Joe: And having been through that again, I, you know, headed over to Plattsburgh, it’s pretty confusing, I think. You hit that where divides and the left lane goes into the other lane of the southbound, Interstate 89 southbound, and then the right lane stays right and it’s just… it’s really weird, and then they come back together. Go slow through there.

Ben: Yeah. Absolutely. And again, the audit really is in relationship to the notification for drivers that construction is being completed. It’s not necessarily for the actual design of the roadway. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens and maybe that there’s…maybe it will kick off a sort of larger, more comprehensive study.

Joe: All right. Well, thanks, Ben.

Ben: Thanks, Joe. Drive safe.

Joe: Ben Barry from Martin, Harding and Mazotti. Again, you can call them at any time at 1800-LAW-1010 or go online to 1800law1010.com. All right. I’m out of here. Mel Allen taking over. He’s got music from Led Zeppelin and ACDC next.