Chapter 2: Safety and Traffic, Section 3: Major Construction Incidents

---

Printable version (PDF)

---

Published Date: August 2026

• 2-301 General
• 2-302 Reportable Incidents
• 2-303 Reporting Procedures
  • 2-303A Serious Injury or Fatality Related Incident
  • 2-303B All Other Related Incidents

---

Section 3 Construction Incidents

2-301 General

This section provides guidelines for reporting and addressing construction incidents on construction projects. For more detailed guidelines on reporting, refer to Chapter 19, “Special Reporting of Serious Injury, Illness, or Fatality,” of the Caltrans Safety and Health Manual.

2-302 Reportable Incidents

Report incidents that involve:

• Serious injury, illness, or death of a contractor’s employee, Caltrans employee, consultant employee, or member of the public in the work zone that was influenced by construction-related activities, conditions, equipment, or personnel.
• Damage rendering equipment owned by the state, a consultant, or the contractor inoperable.
• Public vehicles entering an active work zone resulting in a close call that could have caused a serious injury to or death of a contractor’s employee, Caltrans employee, or consultant employee, or member of the public.
• Collision with facilities or temporary work involving vertical or horizontal clearance, such as structures under construction or their supporting falsework.
• Incidents without injury or death that have a high potential for being fatal or disabling, such as falsework or guying system failures, overturned cranes, high-voltage power line contacts, trench excavation or shoring failures, gas or fuel line fires or explosions, hazardous utility breaks.
• Major damage to a state facility.
• Evacuation of the project, the immediate area, or both.
• Encounters of previously unknown hazardous material on a construction project.
• Hazardous spills within construction project limits.
• Traffic delays longer than 30 minutes.
• Any event that affects the state facility or project work and that may generate media coverage.

2-303 Reporting Procedures

2-303A Serious Injury or Fatality Related Incident

Headquarters Construction needs to be made aware, without delay. In order to facilitate these communications and provide support and guidance to field staff, district onstruction policies should be structured.

Field staff must do the following:

1. Call 911 to obtain emergency services. Some locations may require a method other than a cell phone, which should be known ahead of time and be included in the project-specific Code of Safe Practices.
2. After emergency responders have secured the site, report to the district transportation management center (TMC), the district communication center, or—when district TMC or the district communication center is closed—the Headquarters Communication Center. Caltrans staff can access the contact list on the Maintenance Headquarters Communication Center internal Onramp webpage.
3. Coordinate with emergency responders, Caltrans staff, California Highway Patrol, contractors, utility owners, and other affected parties.
4. After emergency responders and district TMC or district communications centers have been contacted, and if time allows, contact supervisors and managers within their district Construction organization.
5. Consult with construction supervisors and managers in assessing the incident and to seek additional guidance on safety, response, corrective measures, traffic mitigation, and any further reporting.
6. Use the ArcGIS Survey123 application to submit the construction incident report. After submission the application automatically creates the electronic Form DOT CEM-0603, “Construction Incident Notification,” and saves it in the project folder in the application.

   a. The application can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store for Windows-based devices and from the App Store for Apple-based devices.

   b. Caltrans staff can download the ArcGIS Survey123 application through the Comp Portal. Caltrans staff can access application training, video tutorials and additional application resources on the internal Construction Incident Notification Training Resources webpage.

If the application is unavailable, download Form DOT CEM-0603, “Construction Incident Notification” from the CEFS webpage to provide updated information and email it to Construction.Incident.Reports@dot.ca.gov, the district construction safety coordinator, and the district Construction managers. The form is available at:

  https://cefs.dot.ca.gov/

District Construction supervisors and managers:

1. When there is a serious injury or fatality of a contractor’s employee, Caltrans employee, consultant employee, local agency staff, or a member of the public, immediately notify the Construction division chief by phone, in addition to the automated notifications generated by the ArcGIS Survey123 application.
2. After assisting the contractor's employee, Caltrans employee, consultant employee, local agency staff, or member of the public, notify and provide incident details to district managers in Maintenance, Operations, Public Affairs, and the district director by email.
3. Notify, as appropriate, the Construction division chief, deputy division chief and construction safety coordinators.
4. Coordinate actions between divisions as necessary.
5. Provide notification and details to local partners in a separate email, as time permits.
6. Provide lane closure status information to Construction deputies and progress reports including milestones with an estimated time for lane re-opening, as appropriate.
7. Provide incident final reports, as appropriate, to district division chiefs and the district director.

2-303B All Other Related Incidents

Immediately report all other related reportable incidents to the district TMC, the district communication center, or—when district TMC or the district communication center is closed—the Headquarters Communication Center.