The Alabama Department of Transportation will host a free basic traffic incident management class for first responders on March 7 from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. at the Jasper Civic Center.
Ken Colvert, ALDOT’s Traffic Management Center manager and retired 21-year veteran firefighter with the City of Birmingham, will teach safety clearance protocols and offer his unique perspec- tive on handling incidents.
“Getting together to discuss incident responses with the men and women who are out on the road- way is invaluable,” Colvert said. “We’re all working toward the same goal to clear crashes quickly and safely.”
Minor crashes can become a major problem. The chance of a secondary crash increases by 2.8 per- cent for every minute an incident is in the roadway. Often, these secondary crashes are worse and more deadly than the initial incident.
Sixty-five incident responders working a crash were struck and killed nationally in 2021.
On average, an incident responder working a crash is injured every two days and killed every six days in the United States. The towing industry is 15 times deadlier than all other private industries combined, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Everyone has to do their part to make our roadways safer,” Colvert said. “We hope this class will be beneficial for first responders, and we want the public to be aware of their surroundings when driving upon a crash.”
First responders who would like to attend the class or others around the state can sign up for TIMs training at https://www.alabamatim.org/
