With warmer weather comes the start of the road construction season. The men and women building our roads, bridges and highways are back working in construction zones while vehicles whiz past them. Today marks the end of National Work Zone Awareness Week (NWZAW) an annual spring campaign held to encourage safe driving through road construction work zones.

After returning to a record high number of highway fatalities in 2022, Delaware saw a welcomed decline in fatal highway accidents in 2023. This trend is continuing through the beginning of 2024 and we can only hope that this positive trend will also protect our workers.

Each year, AGC of America sends a survey to members seeking to collect information on the number, severity, impacts and potential solutions to highway work zone crashes. The information supports an annual media and public education campaign launched the week before Memorial Day aiming to bring awareness to the risk our workers are put in when vehicles are driven recklessly in work zones. If you perform work in a highway work zone, please consider completing the survey by May 10th.

New 2022 data shows that among the estimated crashes and incidents, there were 891 work zone fatalities. Of those 2022 fatalities, 94 roadway workers lost their lives. NWZAW is just one week of the year but we know the effort to keep our workers safe in the work zone is an everyday effort. Thank you for always making safety a priority. Keep being safe out there!