Tuesday, April 23, 2024 
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
February 20, 2020
The training requirements for flagpersons in Newfoundland and Labrador will double April 1, while a new voluntary course for those who supervise or design traffic control plans at highway construction sites will also be launched.
“We still see risks from excessive speed, distracted driving,” said Dennis Hogan, CEO of Workplace NL, the provincial agency responsible for workplace health, safety and compensation.
Hogan said the new training will bring “a more robust set of standards” to highway work sites.
“It will make it safer for the people who work on those sites. But also for the travelling public.”
Controlling traffic at a road construction site can be dangerous work, and has proven deadly in this province in recent years.
Three road construction workers have died on the job since 2011, and many more have been hurt.
“I would put this line of work at very dangerous,” said Roger Motty, regional manager of Safety First contracting, one of 43 companies in the province certified to administer training for traffic control workers.
So two new courses are being launched by Workplace NL.
One is a mandatory and enhanced flagperson’s course, doubling the minimum training from four to eight hours, which is more in line other provinces. And for the first time, there will be a common curriculum for all private training providers.
The second is a training course for workers who supervise or design traffic control plans for construction sites.
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