WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Caltrans honored 195 fallen highway workers at its 36th Annual Workers Memorial ceremony, emphasizing road safety and the department’s goal to reach zero fatalities and serious injuries on state highways by 2050.<\/p>\n
The event, held at River Walk Park, was dedicated to the memory of Construction Inspector Mahdi Khorram, who was killed on September 18, 2025, in a work zone incident while working in Contra Costa County.<\/p>\n
The ceremony brought together the California Transportation Foundation, families of fallen workers, dignitaries and employees to remember the 195 Caltrans workers who have lost their lives while in service to the state since 1921.<\/p>\n
Caltrans used its signature orange cones to create an aisle down the amphitheater staircase leading to a diamond “caution sign” configuration.<\/p>\n
Each of the 195 cones in the display bore a black ribbon containing the name of an employee who died on duty. One black cone in the center of the diamond represented all people killed while working on the state’s highways, including California Highway Patrol officers, private contractors, tow truck drivers and other emergency responders.<\/p>\n
In remembrance of these fallen heroes, flags were lowered to half-staff at the state Capitol, Swing Space and at Caltrans buildings throughout the state. Orange light bathed the Capitol dome the night prior to the ceremony.<\/p>\n
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, highway construction and maintenance work is one of the most hazardous occupations in the United States.<\/p>\n
In 2021, more than 9,500 work zone collisions occurred on California highways, resulting in an estimated 2,971 injuries and 73 fatalities. The memorial commemoration also included the 12-member Caltrans Honor Guard.<\/p>\n
Caltrans partners with CTF to develop 2 funds benefitting the families of workers killed on the job, including the Fallen Workers Assistance and Memorial Fund and the Caltrans Fallen Workers Memorial Scholarship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Caltrans honored 195 fallen highway workers at its 36th Annual Workers Memorial ceremony, emphasizing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[3671,972,974,100,121,123,122],"class_list":{"0":"post-282862","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento","8":"tag-covering-california","9":"tag-local","10":"tag-national","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-sacramento","13":"tag-sacramento-headlines","14":"tag-sacramento-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}