LUKEVILLE – Arizona Department of
Transportation expertise is helping officials in the Mexican state of Sonora
promote safety on the highway leading to beaches in Puerto Peñasco.
ADOT representatives visited Mexico
recently to train first responders, the military and government officials on
Traffic Incident Management, which promotes quickly clearing incident scenes when
appropriate as well as safeguards for motorists and emergency workers. Traffic
Incident Management techniques have been shown to reduce secondary crashes that
often are more serious than the initial incidents.
The next step of this binational partnership
is Sonora creating a safety corridor before spring break season along the 63
miles of Mexico Route 8, which many Arizonans take south from Lukeville.
“This historic collaboration between ADOT and our Sonoran
counterparts, including Governor Claudia Pavlovich, on the creation of the
safety corridor is great for Arizona,” said Juan Ciscomani, senior adviser to
Governor Doug Ducey on International and Regional Affairs and leader of the
Arizona-Mexico Commission. “It's these kinds of collaborative cross-border
solutions that help us ensure that our infrastructure and our region
are as safe as possible.”
The safety corridor will be enforced by Mexican law enforcement
and military officials. ADOT is providing training for those officials based on
the agency’s experience clearing crashes and restoring traffic flow on Arizona highways.
Tim Lane, director of ADOT’s
Enforcement and Compliance Division, said the idea came up when ADOT officials
were in Hermosillo, Sonora, providing training that helps truck drivers better
understand and prepare for safety inspections conducted at ADOT’s commercial
ports of entry.
“We started talking about creating a
safety corridor, and leaders from both Arizona and Sonora liked the idea right
away,” Lane said. “We hope to learn from each other and make a safer
environment for everyone.”
Other plans for the safety corridor on
Mexico Route 8 include road signs with safety messages in Spanish and English
and a pilot program that will have Sonora sharing information from that area to
511 and ADOT’s Arizona Traveler Information site az511.gov.
Puerto Peñasco, also known as Rocky
Point, is a popular destination for Arizonans. According to the U.S. Department
of Transportation, more than 910,000 people entered Arizona at Lukeville during
the first 10 months of 2017, many of them Arizonans returning from visits to Rocky
Point.
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