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    Bagram forms pedestrian, traffic safety working group

    Bagram forms pedestrian, traffic safety working group

    Photo By Jet Fabara | Ground safety and security professionals joined forces in February 2016 to form the...... read more read more

    BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AFGHANISTAN

    03.01.2016

    Story by Jet Fabara 

    U.S. Forces Afghanistan

    BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – In an effort to increase traffic and pedestrian safety across Bagram, ground safety and security professionals joined forces in February 2016 to form the Pedestrian and Traffic (PAT) Safety Working Group.

    Members from the working group initially included representatives from the Bagram Provost Marshal’s office, the Romanian Military Police Detachment, the Bagram Support Group Safety manager and fire safety chief, as well as the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Ground Safety office to ensure that all concerns of safety were being mitigated with a calibrated effort.

    “People usually deploy here for a year or less, so they don’t normally see the long-term goals that have to be established. By forming a working group that’s maintained, we are now able to address safety issues while using the different resources from pertinent organizations to solve them and, hopefully, provide a permanent fix,” said Sgt. 1s Class Christopher Zurkan, 137th Military Police Detachment Operations noncommissioned officer in charge.

    According to 1st Sgt. Rafael Aguilera, BAF provost sergeant, the need to form this group really arose after a traffic incident that occurred in January 2016. After identifying the hazards, PAT quickly went to work to implement safety controls in key areas.

    “In this kind of an environment, we cannot control the unknown on when things will happen, but the knowns are up to us to make that difference,” said Randy Turnage, BSG ground safety manager. “The benefit of this group is that you have people in place that want to make a difference and when you have same minded people with a goal such as this, you can do many positive things that all will benefit from, whether it’s preventing vehicle accidents or personal injuries.”

    Part of the working group initiative has been implementing new ways of alerting personnel about new signs and high-traffic areas, while assessing what works best, as noted by Zurkan.

    “Our operations NCOIC posted a military police patrol near the location to educate drivers on the newly emplaced traffic control device,” Aguilera said. “Since the stop sign emplacement, there have been zero incidents reported in this highly traveled area.”

    “Our MPs, who respond to each call, will also play a vital role in collecting a main source of the information that will be discussed during our monthly meetings,” said 1st Lt. Marius Bulgariu, deputy provost Marshal and Romanian MP Det. commander.

    One of the main challenges the group has confronted is the signage and acquisition of those signs, according to Zurkan.

    “As we optimize the installation here, we’ve been able to recycle some signs and with the help of the Air Force unit here we’ve found a way of printing the signs, but, ultimately, this will be a long term project,” said Zurkan. “We just held our second meeting Mar. 1 and I think we’ve been successful so far. We brought up a lot of the issues we addressed during the first meeting and we came up with solutions for each of them.”

    The PAT Working Group will meet each month to assess upcoming safety projects and initiatives.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 03.01.2016
    Date Posted: 03.09.2016 01:09
    Story ID: 191674
    Location: BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AF

    Web Views: 264
    Downloads: 1

    PUBLIC DOMAIN