Amey is launching a new road safety campaign to highlight the dangers roadworkers face from incursions caused by drivers ignoring traffic management measures.

The campaign, running across Amey’s social media channels, delivers a powerful message: real people, real lives, real danger.

Calling for greater awareness of roadworker safety, the campaign has been prompted by a weekly surge in close-call incidents in north east Scotland that are becoming increasingly dangerous, and at times life threatening, for both Amey roadworkers and road users.

Incursions into designated road working areas has now become an industry-wide issue, often caused by drivers ignoring red lights, temporary signage and other safety measures.

In 2024, Amey’s north east trunk roads contract recorded a sharp rise in these incidents. Between April and June the incursion rate was 8.4%, but this surged to 31.15% from July to September. Since the beginning of the contract 62.52% of incursions have occurred due to impatience from road users.

Amey’s north east Scotland Highways Maintenance Operative Jamie White said: “We experience incursions on a weekly basis while working on schemes across the network. Many road users do not follow the guidance that we are providing and travel through red lights or into closed areas, endangering our lives.

“We also often receive abuse from road users who are frustrated with having to wait at lights or being inconvenienced from the works, which makes our jobs more difficult and stressful.

“We are here to ensure our roads are well maintained to keep our road users safe. We ask for them to do their bit, have more consideration and to keep us safe too.”

Amey is providing clear guidance to road users to help ensure their journeys are as safe as possible. Road users should follow this guidance and ensure that they are not compromising their own safety, as well as the safety of roadworkers and other drivers.

To promote safety for everyone, Amey advises drivers to:

• Follow all signage and traffic management measures
• Obey speed limits, including temporary ones
• Plan journeys to account for roadworks and reduce stress
• Be respectful and patient with roadworkers maintaining the network.

Drivers who fail to comply with traffic rules may face penalties, including fines of up to £2,500, penalty points or even disqualification.

Amey is currently developing further plans to reduce the number of close call incidents and monitor if the guidance is being followed by road users. These include:

• Using body-worn video cameras to capture high-quality evidence
• Deploying static CCTV cameras to record entry and exit points of traffic management areas
• Installing cone alarm systems to alert workers when a vehicle crosses the boundary between live and working lanes
• Exploring the use of intelligent traffic lights with motion cameras to detect red-light violations.

Amey’s north east Scotland Account Director, Tom Wallace, said: “Red lights and other traffic control measures are important in ensuring the safety of our roadworkers and road users.

“Those who continue to avoid guidance and signage can cause incursions which pose a great risk to our operatives, other road users and themselves.

“We need all road users to be mindful of the importance of traffic management to keep people safe, to be respectful of our employees working on the trunk roads and understand that they are maintaining the network to keep us all safe.”