Does your Program Have a Road Crossing Protocol? Should it?

What’s the most dangerous thing that your outdoor program does?

The answer: Vehicles.

Driving is statistically the most dangerous activity for any outdoor program. Because vehicular accidents can be so serious many programs have specific risk management protocols--things like mandatory driver training, specific vehicle driving protocols, specialized license requirements like a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) or background motor vehicle checks on drivers. Those are just some of the proactive risk management strategies to help reduce the potential for vehicular accidents.

If driving in vehicles is so dangerous, what about other activities that expose your participants to vehicles, like crossing high trafficked roads? Isn’t this a high risk activity? I say the answer is yes. And yet many programs don’t specifically have a Road Crossing Protocol. I think road crossing has been seriously overlooked as a risk management issue for outdoor programs. Why is that?

Let’s take a look at another ‘crossing protocol.’ Most programs have specific protocols for river crossings like unbuckling hipbelts and chest straps to be able to shed the pack quickly. When you come to a river crossing, you assess a whole range of factors to determine if the crossing is hazardous including (but not limited to):

• depth of the river
• speed of the current
• width of the river
• possible downstream hazards like strainers and waterfalls
• water temperature

Based on this data you determine if there are significant risks in doing the crossing. If the river is only 6 inches deep and 5 feet across, you may decide that people don’t need to implement a protocol like unbuckling their hipbelts before stepping across. If it’s 3+ feet deep and 30 feet across you’d initiate the protocol to undo hipbelts. There might also be a series of other specific actions you would take to safely cross the river. If crossing a river can be hazardous and need special protocols to reduce the risk, why not specific protocols for crossing roads?

The first reason that road crossing has often been ignored is that not all programs operate in areas where travelers have to deal with road crossings. If you are running your backpacking program in the Wind River Range in Wyoming or the Hundred Mile Wilderness in Maine, roads simply aren’t an issue. If, on the other hand, you run trips up and down the Appalachian Trail for example, road crossings can be a daily occurrence. Having run programs for over thirty years on the Appalachian Trail, I can tell you that there are some significantly dangerous road crossings along the AT.

Here are a few that I’ve come in contact with. The first is on the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey at Route 206 in Culver’s Gap. The AT crosses Route 206, a busy, high trafficked road that can present real hazards to a group at certain times of day. The next is in Harriman State Park in New York. The AT (also called the Ramapo-Dunderburg Trail) in the park crosses the Palisades Parkway. The Palisades is a two-lane divided highway with no shoulder and a grassy median in the center. I’ve crossed it safely with a group in the early afternoon when there is little traffic. At rush hour it is a constant stream of cars traveling 65+ mph in both directions. There is literally no way to get across until the traffic dies down. And these are just some of the examples.

So what can you do to address the risk associated with high speed vehicular traffic on roads?

1. The first thing I advise your program to do is to assess the areas that you are traveling in and determine if road crossing is a hazard in specific locations. If you find that to be the case then you should approach the issue just as you would any other identified hazard—assess the hazards and develop strategies to mitigate them.
2. Next implement a Road Crossing Protocol that teaches your staff how to assess the hazards of a particular road crossing and specific guidelines for how to reduce the risk of the road crossing. What I present here is a sample road crossing protocol for your consideration.

Sample Road Crossing Protocol

Our trips must often cross roads. This can be hazardous due to the unpredictable nature of drivers and traffic. In order to safeguard all members of the group, leaders should be cautious and use good judgment. The procedures below outline the expectations for leaders crossing roads:

Like river crossings we can identify a number of factors that can increase the risk level of road crossings:

• “Density” of vehicular traffic
• Width of Roadway
• Speed of the traffic
• Type of vehicles (trucks and buses have a much longer stopping distance than cars)
• Visibility in both directions for crossers to be able to see oncoming traffic and assess the scene
• Time required to cross the road (in relation to the amount and speed of vehicular traffic and visibility)
• Visibility for drivers (is it dawn, dusk, foggy, rainy?)
• Road conditions (is the road wet, icy, etc.)

Let me give you an example from the Palisades Parkway in Harriman State Park. At one of the trail crossings there is a curve in the road to the north limiting visibility. In timing the traffic on one occasion I noted that from the time the vehicle was first visible coming from the north to the time it got to the trail crossing was 19 seconds. Timing a person with a full backpack crossing the road at a walking pace it took about 10 seconds. If the car is traveling 65 MPH then the extra 9 seconds is not a lot of leeway. A car can travel hundreds of feet in 9 seconds and even if the driver sees the person and steps on the brakes immediately, the car still requires a significant distance to stop and is coming closer to the person every second.  What if the person has trouble getting across the road? What is the driver is distracted or texting? What if the road conditions are slippery or the tires or brakes on the car are bad? Based on this risk assessment I determined that we should implement a Road Crossing Policy (described below).

• Know your route ahead of time: Know when and where you must cross a road. As you plan the day’s route, keep these road crossings in mind. When will they occur: early morning, mid-day, late afternoon? Obviously, having to cross a road in the dark can also increase the accident potential. Have an idea what type of road you are crossing. Is it a backcountry road with little or no traffic or a busy interstate? Will it be empty at certain times of the day and extremely busy at rush hour? Check the guidebooks to the area for specific information and include a plan of how/when to cross the road ahead of time.
• Assess the crossing:When you arrive at the crossing area, assess the situation for a good place to cross. Where is the point you are supposed to arrive at on the other side of the road in comparison with your point of departure? Is it straight across the road, diagonal, or do you have to walk down the roadway for a distance? Also assess the visibility at the crossing point, taking into account your ability to see or hear oncoming traffic and their ability to see you. You should have good visibility down the road in either direction. If you have good visibility for traffic, have the group members cross the road as they would any roadway, looking carefully in both directions and proceeding across when it is safe to do so.
• Compensate for Reduced visibility: If the crossing spot does not have such visibility, post a watcher at a location along the road to give you that visibility. You may need more than one watcher so as to monitor traffic from both directions simultaneously. Watchers are there to signal to the other group members when it is safe to cross the road. Watchers should be off the road on the shoulder. All trip members should understand the crossing signals from the watcher, and not cross until they receive that signal. Adapting signals from the AWA Canoeing Safety signals, one arm straight over head means SAFE TO CROSS FROM THIS DIRECTION. ONLY signal in the affirmative meaning that it is OK to cross. No signal means it is not year clear to cross. In any crossing situation the group members should look carefully in both directions and move across the road reasonably quickly. One of the leaders should be on hand at the crossing site.
• Cross one person at a time: When you decide you are going to implement this protocol, the most controlled way to cross a busy road is one person at a time. That way there is only one person moving to keep an eye on. If a vehicle is coming that person can respond. Having multiple people crossing at once means that Person A might go one way and Person B go another, increasing the possibility that someone might be hit.
• Crossing roads at night: It is best to avoid crossing roads at night. It may be safer to camp (even illegally) and get up early to make up mileage than to cross a busy road at night. Leaders must use their best judgment on what is the safest course of action. If you do decide to cross at night, you should use the precautions listed above. In addition, each group member should have a flashlight out to be able to see the road surface they are crossing. If you need to use watchers, they should be posted with flashlights. Three on-off flashes of the light in quick succession from the watchers means SAFE TO CROSS FROM THIS DIRECTION.
• Walking along roads: If your route requires that you walk along a road for any length of time, you should use the following procedures: Walk on the side of the road with the widest shoulder (if there is one). Walk in a single file line. It may be better (as runners often do) to walk on the side of the road facing traffic so you can see oncoming traffic and more quickly move away if needed. One leader should be in front and one in the rear to manage the group. Be especially careful at curves where drivers may not be able to see you. Walking along long sections of road a night should be avoided whenever possible. If you must walk, everyone should have a headlamp and should walk on the side of the road facing traffic to maximize your visibility.
• Unloading buses: Buses should be unloaded from the curbside. Pull things through the luggage bays whenever possible to avoid unloading on the street side.
• Crossing near buses: If you are dropped off by bus along a roadside, make sure that you have good visibility in either direction before crossing in front of or behind the bus. Either wait for the bus to pull out before you cross, or use the road crossing procedures outlines above.
• Crossing with canoes: Portaging a canoe across the road means understanding that you are transporting a bulky object and will be moving more slowly. When you have to cross a road with canoes it is important to follow the procedures above. In addition, the canoes should be emptied of all gear so that they can be carried quickly. Find the best route across the road and use that area. Post watchers (in both directions if necessary to signal cars to slow down and/or to indicate when it is safe to cross using the methods outlined above). Two to four people should carry the canoe at waist level, on the bow and on the stern. Do not carry the canoe over your head, it is too difficult to quickly jettison the canoe.

Now that I’ve explained the protocol, let me go back to the Palisades Parkway example. It was early afternoon so traffic was not very heavy. However the lack of visibility to the north because of the curve meant that a car would suddenly appear with only 19 seconds ‘warning.’ We sent one person down to the corner who could see significantly farther north. When that person saw that it was clear of traffic she raised her arm over her head indicating that it was clear to cross. That allowed people to cross to the grassy median. Then we implemented the same system for the next two lanes of traffic coming up from the south.

Protocols are one thing, judgment is another. There is a famous quote from Paul Petzoldt, founder of the National Outdoor Leadership School. He said, “rules are for fools.” Taken out of context a lot of people have interpreted this statement to mean that Paul rejected protocols. On the contrary. Drew Leemon, NOLS Risk Manager, once asked Petzoldt what he meant. Petzoldt explained that protocols were useful and necessary, for example, a protocol that requires people to wear life jackets on the river is a good thing. What he meant was that you can’t write a protocol/rule for every situation and the person who thinks you can take some huge rule book into the wilderness to just decide how to handle all situations is a fool. In the end Protocols work hand in hand with Instructor Judgment. A Road Crossing protocol (or any protocol) is a tool. It requires judgment to decide when to use the tool to effectively reduce hazards. I don’t use the Road Crossing protocol every time I cross a road, just like I don’t unbuckle a hipbelt every time I cross a stream. The job of the instructor is to assess if the road crossing presents a significant hazard. If it does, the protocol provides a tool to mitigate the hazard.

In order to offer a ‘complete’ risk management perspective on this, you should consult with your legal counsel about the potential liabilities associated both with having or not having a road crossing protocol. This is not (at least not yet) an ‘accepted industry standard’ like lightning protocols are. As a result, you need, with legal advice, to determine if this in your program’s best interest from a legal liability perspective. I believe that it does mitigate many of the hazards of road crossings, but risk mitigation is not necessarily the same thing as liability mitigation. Some legal experts might argue that people (specifically adults) cross roads all the time and are fully capable of making their own decisions about crossing safety so having a protocol places an increased burden on the program to manage an individual’s safety. In this case, the legal advice might be to not have a protocol and assume no responsibility for managing people’s risk when crossing roads. However, if you work with minors then they might be considered not to have the experience to assess the hazard and make appropriate decisions. My personal feeling is that this is fundamentally an ethical issue first and a legal issue second. If I know of a hazard that my participants are not aware of or would not consider (regardless of their age) then it is my moral obligation to inform them of the hazards and, I believe, to take a step further than that which is to provide a protocol for mitigating the hazard.

For more information on managing risk I suggest you read theRisk Assessment and Safety Management (RASM) model which I developed and which is in use by outdoor programs throughout the US and internationally.

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