Leading road maintenance companies have joined together with the Highways Agency to launch a national radio campaign to ask drivers to ‘take extra care’ through roadworks.
The messages are running on commercial radio stations across England from 21 October to 3 November and consist of a series of three hard-hitting messages to raise awareness among the public of the need to drive safely through roadworks.
The campaign is being run jointly by A-One+, Amey, Balfour Beatty, Carillion, EM Highway Services, Connect Roads, Connect Plus (M25), Galliford Try, Sir Robert McAlpine and Skanska UK, who provide services to the Highways Agency. The companies are all members of the Roadworkers Safety Forum, a group dedicated to reducing accidents and injuries to roadworkers.
Every year there are hundreds of incursions into roadworks which put road workers lives at risk and lead to deaths and serious injury. These adverts focus on the lack of awareness of some drivers that roadworks are a place of work for thousands of people and that all of us have a right to expect a safe working environment.
The adverts are being broadcast during the Highways Agency’s Road Safety Awareness Week which will see awareness events taking place across the country, including the release of some hard-hitting CCTV footage which shows some of the worst incursions into roadworks on a motorway.
Tony Gates, managing director of Balfour Beatty, and chair of the Highways Term Maintenance Association, which represents companies that carry out roadworks, said: “For some reason a small minority of drivers still find it acceptable to put road workers lives in danger by not taking care when they go through roadworks. These adverts are about reminding road users that road works are like any other work place, and our workers have just as much right to work in a safe environment.”
