Discussions

There has been a lot of highway work lately, which is all good. Have noticed something that makes no sense to me though. The flag person is set up about 50 meters before an intersecting road every time. If you live down that road you stop and wait 10 minutes just to travel the last 50 meters. Once, this was done near one access to a town. The workers are half a mile away so it isn't a safety issue. Anyone know if there is a reason for this?

Did that dine that.  
 
My bet is that road is used for mustering and turn arounds . Many times that road may be the access road for construction traffic coming on and off the main road. Things like gravel and water trucks.  
 
Those workers half a mile away need equipment to get to them and leave. That intersection could simply be needed as a break area for pilot truck drivers and bloggers.  
 
 
You probably may notice that it probably is the advance flagger stopping you. There usually is another flagger closer to the site.  
 
That advance guy/gal is a must on the highways. Trying to keep the speeds to 60 with one flagger is near impossible.  
 
 

There might be one lane traffic going back an forth with a pilot truck and that's also a safety issue, even if you have to go anywhere before the construction. Cause if they let you go and traffic is coming from the other side and you get hit, that's on the Flagger and the company.  

What Doug and Skyy have mentioned above is both true. Usually the truckers or pilot truck drivers use the road as a place to turn around. It is a big safety issue, as the stopping flagger needs to be at least 50-150m away from the barricades/equipment. If you do live down that road, you can usually talk to one of the flaggers and ask if you are able to go ahead and they will radio the stop flagger. Whether they let you go through or not depends on whether the flagger feels it is safe to do so (any oncoming traffic, any truckers turning around, etc.)