Mar 16, 2016 3 min read

Here’s some welcome news: State police said they will be ramping up enforcement on speeding and aggressive driving in construction zones on Interstate 70.

The speed limit will be 45 mph in multiple work zones along a 40-mile stretch between the West Virginia line and New Stanton.

“We’ll be near construction zones doing speed enforcement with radar, aerial enforcement with planes, operation Yellow Jacket with an officer in a PennDOT vehicle as well as using unmarked and unconventional vehicles to catch dangerous driving behavior,” Trooper Matthew Jardine said at a news conference earlier this week.

The already steep fines are doubled in construction zones, and those caught driving 11 mph or faster above the limit face an automatic 15-day license suspension.

It’s likely as the spring construction season begins troopers will be extremely busy, and an awful lot of people are going to lose their driver’s licenses. Out-of-state drivers just passing through the area are probably more likely to slow down and obey the warnings. Local drivers, however, have become accustomed to the lack of speed-limit enforcement on I-70 and I-79. Some of them drive as fast as they please, knowing radar traps on these highways are about as rare as blue apples.

Anyone who has approached Washington from the west on I-70 knows that where the speed limit is 65 from the state line to Chestnut Street, it’s normal to be passed by every kind of vehicle including rigs hauling oversized loads going 75 to 80 mph. When the limit drops to 55, a few of those drivers slow to 65 to 70. After the 45 mph signs appear at Jessop Place, a few of them scale back to 60.

For those of us content to drive in the right lane and have our doors blown off by speeders, the sight of cars pulled off the highway, their drivers sitting in sullen silence as troopers write their tickets will evoke much tongue-clucking and gleeful chuckling.

Fact is that speeding through construction zones is highly hazardous to the crews working there and makes their jobs more difficult and time-consuming. Everyone would like to see the reconstruction finished, but unless traffic slows down the work will take even longer to complete.

Consider that cruising through a construction zone at 65 mph might get you to your destination a few minutes faster, but if your vehicle hits a construction worker you’re not going to reach that destination for at least five years – the minimum jail sentence for such an offense.

Increased police presence in the construction zones will help save lives and speed the projects toward completion. But even after the area between the north and south junctions of Interstates 70 and 79 is widened to three lanes and exit and entrance ramps are improved, this area in particular will remain dangerous because of the high volume of traffic it bears.

We hope the stepped-up enforcement continues on both interstate highways long after this round of construction is complete.