OSHA Inspections at Highway Projects

Last year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a compliance directive (CPL 02-01-054) to provide guidance to its compliance officers addressing the safe inspection of work sites where workers performing construction work on and/or near roadways or highways are exposed to hazards from vehicular traffic. This is the first time that OSHA has detailed how compliance officers should go about inspecting highway road construction projects. The directive states that highway construction work zone inspections have two focuses-inspections of construction work, and inspections of temporary traffic controls. The directive  specifically focuses on the OSHA standards regarding the use of signs, signals, and barricades, which is incorporated by the reference of Part VI of the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) 1988 Edition, Revision 3, as well as the Millennium Edition (December 2000). Additionally, the directive provides general enforcement guidance on issuing citations for § 5(a)(1) General Duty Clause violations. AGC has raised concerns with OSHA about its inspectors not having the proper expertise for enforcing MUTCD requirements. We are now hearing from AGC members that OSHA has been undertaking compliance reviews at highway construction sites and specifically looking at traffic control implementation. AGC is trying to gauge the extent of these reviews and what issues are being raised. Please let us know if one of your highway projects has been subject to an OSHA compliance review and in particular if MUTCD and traffic control were the subject of the review. Please contact Brian Deery at deeryb@agc.org with any relevant information.