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Highway Worker's Death Spotlights Dangers

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By RICH SHOPES | The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 20, 2008

TAMPA - Highway workers can get used to the whoosh of trucks and cars going down the road but generally avoid getting too comfortable on the job, one of the most dangerous around.

"The first time I worked on I-4 my hands were shaking," said Tampa's transportation division manager, Tony Rodriguez. "It's a very dangerous environment."

Rodriguez got a reminder of how dangerous Sunday morning when he learned one of his employees, 65-year-old Miguel Mercado, a city traffic count engineer, was struck by a pickup and killed at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and 53rd Street.

Joseph Campbell, who was working with Mercado, was injured as well. He was listed in fair condition today at Tampa General Hospital.

About 50 highway workers are killed yearly by passing vehicles, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Rodriguez said Mercado and Campbell did their job properly, donning reflective safety vests and activating the flashing lights on their Public Works truck, which was parked in the center turning lane on MLK.

The men were outside the truck, getting ready to stretch a traffic-count tube across MLK when, according to police, a pickup driven by Aaron Swanson of Riverview swerved into the center lane and crashed into the back of the truck, killing Mercado, who was pinned between the two vehicles.

Rodriguez said Mercado's job, like that of other highway workers, always had an element of danger because driver behavior isn't always predictable. The rise of cell phones and text messaging behind the wheel only escalates the risk level.

"I worry about my guys all the time," said city Construction Engineer Don Cermeno. "They're always closing lanes and shifting traffic, and you worry about somebody going through the barricades. But something like this, what can you do?"

Larry Jones, who supervises 24 Tampa-area Road Rangers, said he tells his crew to constantly be on the lookout for drivers not paying attention or under the influence. "Some things you can't control when people are involved," he said.

In March 2006, Road Ranger Don Bradshaw had finished putting out traffic cones and flares along Interstate 275 near the Howard-Armenia exit when he was struck by a car driven by a drunken driver. Bradshaw died at the scene.

The state's "move-over law" requires drivers to either slow down or move their cars over for emergency vehicles on the side of the road, but many motorists ignore the law, Road Rangers and others say.

"They go their speed and they don't pay attention to anybody else," said Howard Masters, an Orlando-area Road Ranger who's had a few close calls.

"I'm always looking around. You turn your back for a second and you don't know when somebody will come running up behind you," he said.

Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Steve Gaskins said he's had some close calls as well. "It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up," he said.

Since the 1930s, seven state troopers have been struck by vehicles and killed while on the job.

Reporter Rich Shopes can be reached at (813) 259-7633.

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