Legislative Alert: Ask Your Massachusetts State Legislators to Support H. 3763, S.2380

Legislative Alert: Ask Your Massachusetts State Legislators to Support H. 3763, S.2380

Action Requested by June 30:  Please contact your Massachusetts State Senator and State Representative, based on where you live and vote, and ask them to contact the Joint Committee on Transportation and urge them to support H.3763 An Act improving safety measures for highway maintenance personnel   In the Senate this bill is:  S.2380 An Act improving safety measures for highway maintenance personnel

Find your Legislators:  https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator

• This page will give you your legislators’ names, along with a link to their official legislative pages with their email addresses.

Here is a sample email to modify to send to your state legislators – be sure to modify it and use the Senate version for your Senator and the House version for your State Representative.

Check the list of legislators on the Joint Committee on Transportation to see if one of your legislators is on the committee, which you’ll want to note in your email.  If you are willing, please copy Abbie Goodman on your email to legislators, so we can follow up with them.

On June 3, 2025, MassDOT Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver testified before the Joint Committee on Transportation of an important provision for keeping MassDOT staff safe while they’re working hard to keep our roadways safe for everyone else.  Highlights of his testimony are below.

H.3763 An Act improving safety measures for highway maintenance personnel     filed by Rep. Ted Philips, will allow MassDOT to develop policies around using a limited number of rear-facing blue lights along with amber lights on our construction vehicles operating in our work zones on the interstates and other high speed roadways. This is an incredibly important proposal that has been used in states like Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas to name a few. The data is indisputable. This provision will save lives.

I know our friends in law enforcement have concerns and all we ask is that you work together with us on policies and regulations that make sense.

Here is  a link to the June 3 public hearing for anyone who is interested in watching the testimony (Highway Administrator Gulliver’s testimony starts just past the 9 minute mark): Hearing: https://malegislature.gov/Events/Hearings/Detail/5195

Background provided to ACEC/MA via MassDOT:

• 3763 would amend Section 7E of Chapter 90 of the General Laws to incorporate MassDOT into the list of agencies eligible to apply for a permit from the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to use flashing, rotating, or oscillating blue lights.
• This is a small procedural change but one that will absolutely save lives.
• This legislation would only apply to MassDOT and contractor vehicles actively engaged in highway work. It would only permit the use of rear-facing blue lights—never front-facing.
• It would not in any way replace or diminish the role of law enforcement at construction sites. What it will do is help MassDOT slow traffic through work zones, which is one of the most critical things we can do to protect our workers and the traveling public.
• Think of your own experience driving and your own behavior.  What is the first thing that every single driver does when they see blue lights?  You check your speed. You slow  down.
• The data—the resultant driver behavior—is indisputable. It’s been demonstrated in every single state that has implemented similar policies. Big states and small states, red states and blue states alike. 
• States like Missouri, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Ohio, Indiana, Texas, and Florida have all authorized blue lights for highway construction and DOT vehicles. And they have all experienced an immediate and measurable improvement in driver awareness and reduced speeds in work zones after adopting blue lights on work trucks.
• Massachusetts is in a crisis regarding work zone safety right now but regrettably, this is not a new trend.  Several years back, a sharp increase in work zone crashes lead to the creation of the Massachusetts Work Zone Safety Task Force. 
• MassDOT ran a pilot of blue lights using portable trailers at work zones at three locations.  Working with the State Police, radar readings clearly proved that the blue lights led to a decrease in vehicle speeds through those work sites. 

MassDOT is asking for passage of this bill with such urgency now because:

• First, there has been an incredible increase in transportation investment these past few years, which is, of course, very needed
  • As of June 2025, MassDOT has nearly 700 active construction projects across the Commonwealth – many of them at night. 
  • The people who build and maintain our roads face risk every single day. Our highway workers spend more time with boots on the ground in high-speed traffic than anyone.  And they need and deserve protection.
• Second, the last 12 months have been among the deadliest in recent memory for our highway teams.  MassDOT lost David Sousa, a dedicated MassDOT employee, struck and killed while doing his job protecting others. Just a few months ago, three contractor employees were killed in a horrific crash in Springfield while working on Interstate 91.
• Looking at the statewide statistics, in the last 12 months  Massachusetts had 659 crashes reported statewide that were work-zone related.  Eighty (80) resulted in an injury to either the occupants of the vehicle or the people working out on the roadway, and four were fatalities.
• These are not just statistics. These are fathers, husbands, wives, daughters, co-workers, and friends. And each of them was doing exactly what we asked of them—working hard to maintain and improve our infrastructure and keeping our roadways safe – expecting to go home at the end of their shift.
• Safety is MassDOT Highway Division’s top priority, and they are constantly searching for ways to make safety improvements anywhere they can.  In recent years they have worked with the legislature on a number of initiatives to make our roadways safer including the recent safety bill to improve safety for vulnerable road users.
• MassDOT supports a litany of safe driving campaigns, whether the focus is on work sites, distracted driving, driving impaired, and more.
• MassDOT partners with municipalities on efforts to focus on a targeted safety improvements – Like the city of Brockton to improve seat belt use. 
• MassDOT has provided millions in safety grants to cities and towns and provided technical support and equipment like Radar Speed Feedback units to cities and towns.  And they have installed or distributed a combined total of over a thousand warning and regulatory signs, delineator posts, and guardrail delineators.
• But in all the effort to make our roadways safer for road users they have not been able to make certain safety improvements for the people who do the work.
• They have been doing what we can with current laws – they are in the process of rolling out a Connected Work Zone pilot, which will digitally map work sites and transmit that information to Waze, Apple Maps, and newer vehicles connected Systems.
• They outfit their staff with the latest high-visibility gear. They put up signs, barrels, message boards. They follow every state and federal work zone safety standard to the letter and then some. But it’s not enough. They are still losing people.  We need help.
• Our existing tools to encourage safer, slower driving only go so far. 
• MassDOT is willing to use the tools that the legislature gives them to improve safety. Blue lights are not a magic fix. But they are a proven tool that gets immediate results: they catch drivers’ attention, they signal urgency, and most importantly, they slow people down.
• Work zones are not just job sites. They’re human zones. And when something as simple as the color of a light can save a life, we need to act.
• MassDOT’s incident reporting system shows in the past year they have had 19 contractor or DOT vehicles struck by a civilian; another seven crashes into equipment and nine workers hit by vehicles – again four of which resulted in fatalities.
• There have been 659 crashes reported statewide that were work-zone related through April 10, 2025.

Thank you for your help with advocating on this important issue.