Roadworks and road safety
In the Netherlands, there have been 25 deaths during roadworks in the 1997-2003 period. Annually, there are about 1,000 injury crashes of which a quarter have serious consequences. By far the most casualties occur among road users; road workers themselves are seldom involved in a road crash while at work. Most of the casualties are car occupants. Half of the crashes at these locations are rear-end collisions or side collisions; traffic cones are also often hit or, once hit, hinder other vehicles. Lorries are involved in crashes during road works twice as often as average (12% versus 6%).
Two-thirds of severe crashes which occur during roadworks take place during daylight hours, when it's dry weather and on a dry road surface. The cause of such crashes is mainly a matter of driving behaviour such as changing lanes too late, insufficient lane control, keeping insufficient distance, and insufficient understanding of road signs.
During large scale roadworks such as cleaning porous asphalt and extensive maintenance, all sorts of safety measures are taken on motorways such as placing protection constructions or temporarily closing roads. Generally, only marker posts are used on secondary roads.
In the Netherlands, there are guidelines for the uniform preparation, signalling, and marking and signposting, as well as for the working conditions of road workers. These guidelines are not legally binding. The EU education programme PREVENT paid special attention to this theme.
For more details: Fact sheet Roadworks and road safety (pdf)
