A veteran flagger says motorists on the Malahat are the worst she’s ever seen for exceeding construction-zone speed limits, laying on the horn and shouting abuse and putting the lives of work crews at risk.
“It’s scary when people are going by you at 80, 90 or 100 kilometres an hour,” said Paula McBrine, traffic-control supervisor on the Malahat construction project. “I think it’s because they’re commuters, they’re in a big rush, they don’t leave themselves enough time so when they get here and get held up, it’s our fault.”
McBrine, a flagger for 14 years, is working on the Trans-Canada Highway on a four-kilometre section of the Malahat, from south of the Shawnigan Lake turnoff to north of the Malahat summit. The construction speed limit of 60 km/h forces Malahat traffic, which includes transport trucks and many travellers in recreational vehicles or hauling trailers, to slow from the 80 km/h speed limit that covers most of the highway.
“They should all know we’re here — we’ve been here since May,” McBrine said.
McBrine said flaggers are only asking motorists to slow down over a short distance for the protection of the road crews and the motoring public, since many barricades have been removed and the road is inherently more dangerous.
“If they miss the corner, they’re going to go way down [the mountainside] and possibly hurt themselves,” she said.
Flaggers have had close calls with vehicles veering toward them, McBrine said.
“I’ve had their tires two inches from my boot. A lot of people are driving and they see you and it’s unconscious, but they tend to go where they’re looking,” she said.
The construction speed zone remains in effect on weekends — when road construction is on hold — because the motorists are still facing challenges they need to slow down for, she said.
Drivers act “totally differently” when the police are doing traffic enforcement on the Malahat, McBrine said.
But even when the Capital Regional District Integrated Road Safety Unit is clocking speeds on the Malahat, as they were this week, plenty of drivers get hefty tickets.
Police issued 35 speeding tickets to motorists in the construction zone between 9:45 a.m. and 2 p.m. Monday.
“Roadway markers, construction equipment and most importantly, flaggers, did not seem to deter those in a hurry to go somewhere,” said Staff-Sgt. James Anderson of IRSU.
Officers also issued 13 tickets to motorists not wearing seatbelts and others using cellphones while driving.
McBrine has worked on busy highways near Lake Louise, Alta., but said the Malahat is the worst place she has worked. “We have 70,000 vehicles through there [Lake Louise] in a day, so it’s not like there’s more traffic here than anywhere else, but up there it’s more tourists and not as many commuters.”
Tammy Sampson, founding member of the B.C. Flagging Association, said part of the problem is that road construction projects are springing up in places where motorists haven’t seen them for a while.
“Ten years ago we didn’t see this amount of construction,” she said.
“Flag people are there for the safety of the construction crew, but they’re also there for the safety of the public. Sometimes the flag people are in place for reasons that are not obvious to the driver.”
