Employees of the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) told commissioners and the public that a recent tragedy involving two employees highlighted the need for full training for traffic‑control crews.

“Purpose of our traffic control is to keep the road workers safe,” said CDOT employee 1, a staff member, summarizing the safety goal. Another employee said the work is continuous and hazardous: “The traffic doesn't stop. There's no break. You can't walk across the lanes.”

CDOT staff described a planned traffic control technician training endorsement that will be a full‑day, hands‑on session intended to ensure crews know how to set traffic control, stage trucks and equipment, and work safely in live, active lane closures. “So we're doing a traffic control technician training endorsement. It's a full day training here...this training is gonna make sure we're all ready to direct traffic and be able to take care of ourselves and our coworkers,” CDOT employee 2 said.

Speakers detailed specific equipment and operational constraints. Crews are replacing a TL‑3 smart cushion and said they must perform some lane closures at night because “there's lanes that we can't close down during the daytime,” CDOT employee 4 said. Crews said they work on highways posted at 55 mph and rely on attenuators—identified in the meeting as a “scorpion” model—to protect workers if a vehicle strikes the work site. “The attenuator has a scorpion on it and that's what actually protects us if somebody's gonna actually run into our job site and hit that,” CDOT employee 4 said.

Speakers emphasized on‑the‑job, practical training and pre‑work safety steps: staging trucks, briefing crews on positions and hazards, and placing clean, reflective cones and signs before work begins. “Then we'll start setting the traffic control. So our crew will go out, start dropping signs on the highway. All of our cones and everything are clean. They're reflective,” CDOT employee 1 said.

Staff framed the training and equipment replacement as measures to reduce hazards so employees can return home safely after shifts. “At the end of the day, everybody should be able to go home,” CDOT employee 3 said. CDOT employee 1 concluded by referencing agency values: “We actually have CDOT values here and safety is the first 1. And the most important part of our job is the traffic control.”

No formal vote or binding action was reported in the transcript; employees described planned training and equipment replacement and urged adherence to safety procedures.