Traffic control devices: flares.

Existing law requires the Department of Transportation to place and maintain, or cause to be placed and maintained, for highways under its jurisdiction, appropriate signs, signals, and other traffic control devices, as required, and authorizes the department to place and maintain, or cause to be placed and maintained, such appropriate signs, signals, or other traffic control devices as may be authorized, or as may be necessary to properly indicate and carry out specified provisions, or to warn or guide traffic upon the highways. Existing law authorizes the duly authorized representative of the Department of Transportation or local authorities, including persons contracting to perform construction, maintenance, or repair of a highway, with the approval of the department or local authority and while performing that work, to restrict the use of, and regulate the movement of traffic through or around, the affected area if the traffic would endanger worker safety or interfere with or endanger the movement of traffic through the area. Existing law authorizes traffic to be regulated by warning signs, lights, appropriate control devices, or by a person or persons controlling and directing the flow of traffic. This bill would prohibit the Department of Transportation or persons contracting with the department for the construction, maintenance, or repair of a highway from using flares as a traffic control device, as defined. The bill would exclude the Department of the California Highway Patrol's use of flares from this prohibition when it cooperates with the Department of Transportation in the enforcement of the closing, or restriction of use, of any state highway.