In LaSalle County, Illinois a construction worker flagging traffic was injured on Friday morning along an Illinois 351 construction site, according to the Bloomington Pantagraph. The flagger, Eliseo Escatel, 38, of Peru, Illinois was hit by a car and taken to Illinois Valley Community Hospital.
Escatel reportedly attempted to jump out of the way of a Jeep Liberty that did not slow down in the contruction zone. The driver, a Peru resident, was charged with driving with a suspended license, failure to stop for a flagger, and reckless conduct.
The accident took place on the same day that workers in other parts of the state were handing out saftey information for National Work Zone Awareness Week. WJBC News Radio reports that “twenty-one people were killed in work-zone related crashes in Illinois last year”.
The law firm of David Abels & Associates, P.C. currently represents a flagger who has been hit and injured twice over the past several years while flagging in Chicago area construction zones. The first case settled a few years ago, and the second case is currently pending in the Circuit Court of Cook County against an Allstate driver. The issue in court is not liability, but the amount of money our client is entitled to receive from the negligent driver.