By WHITNEE ICE&nbsp;By St. Joseph Post&nbsp;MoDOT is encouraging awareness this week with roadway safety during summer construction season after an accident&nbsp;involving&nbsp;workers&nbsp;occurred&nbsp;earlier this week.&nbsp;District construction and material engineer Austin Hibler says there was an accident involving a striping crew&nbsp;earlier this week&nbsp;on southbound I-29 north of St. Joseph.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Semitruck hit one of our TMA’s which is&nbsp;a&nbsp;Truck Mounted Attenuator, it’s&nbsp;basically&nbsp;a crash cushion used to&nbsp;shield&nbsp;our&nbsp;trucks and our equipment and our people,&nbsp;and so it’s the first line of defense for our crews,&nbsp;and an&nbsp;inattentive&nbsp;drive struck one of those,” Hibler tells St. Joseph Post.&nbsp;&nbsp;Hibler says&nbsp;the traveling public need to watch for all types of work zones on the roadways.&nbsp;&nbsp;“We are seeing an uptick in accidents similar to this but in this district and state wide, with our vehicles getting hit. People who may or&nbsp;may&nbsp;not be paying attention or what not,” says Hibler.&nbsp;&nbsp;Hibler says to slow down when you come-up on a work zone.&nbsp;&nbsp;“Put your phone down and pay attention&nbsp;because&nbsp;you never know when you’re going to come up on&nbsp;some type of work or some type of worker out there on the roadway.”&nbsp;&nbsp;

Summer roadway construction season is underway