Drivers urged: ‘Don’t put road workers lives at risk’

A road junction in Merseyside, UK, has become a hotspot for life-threatening incidents to construction workers, says Highways England. Contractors have reported 23 incidents in two months where their safety has been put at risk by drivers ignoring overnight closures. Road users have driven into roadworks for the £3m improvement project at Switch Island, where the M57, M58 and three A roads all join. One lorry driver travelled through the construction area without stopping - forcing workers to get out
May 23, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

A road junction in Merseyside, UK, has become a hotspot for life-threatening incidents to construction workers, says 8101 Highways England.

Contractors have reported 23 incidents in two months where their safety has been put at risk by drivers ignoring overnight closures.

Road users have driven into roadworks for the £3m improvement project at Switch Island, where the M57, M58 and three A roads all join.

One lorry driver travelled through the construction area without stopping - forcing workers to get out the way quickly - while another incident involved a motorcyclist swerving around a worker. Meanwhile, a 4x4 driver swore at a worker who tried to offer advice before driving away.

Highways England says there are nearly 300 incidents per week of road users driving into coned-off construction areas where road workers are based at motorways and major A roads.

In addition, findings revealed there were over 1,200 incidents in the north-west of England alone during a three-month period last year.

Phil Tyrrell, Highways England project manager for the Switch Island scheme, said the upgrade will offer better journeys through the junction. 

“Drivers who selfishly and illegally ignore the closures to force their way through are putting both their lives and those of our road workers at risk – all to save a few minutes on their journeys.”

The Switch Island improvement scheme includes changes to the road layout and lane markings, new barriers between carriageways, coloured high friction surfaces, better signs and a new 400m shared cycle path.

LED lights similar to an airport runway are also being implemented in the road surface which will light up when traffic lights turn green to help drivers see which lane to follow.

New road signs will be displayed on three new gantries over the A5036 Dunnings Bridge Road, A59 Ormskirk Road and A5758 Brooms Cross Road to help drivers get into the correct lane to continue their journeys.

Urban Traffic Control

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Europe-bound drivers fail numbers test
    August 3, 2015
    With almost six million of the UK’s motorists expected to head to Europe before the end of 2015, new survey by RAC European Breakdown exposes Britons' ignorance of what to do if in distress on overseas roads. It found that most drivers can't name the European Union (EU)-wide three-digit number to call in emergencies. Only 38% know the correct answer is 112. Worryingly, 10 per cent think the normal UK 111 non-emergency NHS line extends its reach throughout the EU. A further 6 per cent confuse their contin
    Read More
  • Moving pictures: live-stream body-worn cameras hit Manila
    June 5, 2018
    Makati, the financial centre of the Philippines, is home to just half a million residents. However, the daytime population of Makati - one of 16 cities that make up the metropolitan Manila area – is estimated to be more than three times that. Home to the highest concentration of multi-national and local corporations in the Philippines, it is a commercial hub: 600,000 vehicles are thought to move through downtown Makati on a typical weekday. Maintaining traffic flow and responding quickly to incidents is the
    Read More
  • Progress towards a pan-European cooperative infrastructure
    July 17, 2012
    Kallistratos Dionelis, General Secretary of ASECAP, makes the case for a lightly regulated, staged progression towards a pan-European cooperative infrastructure environment, the achievement of which should look to engender cooperation between the public and private sectors. Such an approach, he says, is the only real path to success.
    Read More
  • TRL: ‘To ensure future road safety - don’t repeat the past’
    September 6, 2019
    The UK’s Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) says that future road safety will require innovation rather than repeating past measures. Speaking at the UK Department for Transport (DfT)’s International Road Safety Conference, TRL’s academy director Richard Cuerden discussed why a paradigm shift is needed in the transport sector’s approach to road safety interventions to ensure road casualties are reduced significantly by 2030. The number of deaths on the world’s roads remains unacceptably high, with an e
    Read More

Highlighted Content