Monday 13th August 2007

More Than 80 Per Cent Of Road Workers Abused

says new RAC Foundation report

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We’re nominating another occupation for the

Working on the highways isn't worth the aggro

‘Worst Job In Britain’ accolade. According to the RAC Foundation, 81 per cent of roadworkers have been verbally or physically abused by motorists and 40 per cent are abused on either a daily or weekly basis. Worse still, is that one third of this abuse reported involved acts of extreme aggression, including food, bottles and other missiles being hurled at workers from passing vehicles. Some have even been shot at with air rifles. 

Edmund King, Executive Director for the RAC Foundation said there was “no excuse for attacking roadworkers or driving recklessly through road works in an attempt to speed up the journey.  Ironically- speeding through road works leads to more accidents and hence further delays.” 

The UK’s highway maintenance industry is looking at ways to both punish offending drivers and improve the working conditions for its staff. It might look to America for inspiration. Earlier this month, a Californian highway undergoing road works was closed because construction workers received torrents of verbal abuse from hundreds of inconvenienced motorists. Perhaps threatening the closure of the M1 would shut up a few motorists here.   

[Bunglist]

Perhaps they should get on with there work quickly and officiently and stop taking so many Tea breaks then.

And actually do the work properly instead of cowboying it all the time.

[shadowninja]

Indeedy. And salesmen can stop lying so that I can respect them.

[Tinohead]

Settle down! So they don't come across as the hardest workers in the world, but it's up to their bosses to give them the proverbial kick up the arse.

There's absolutely to reason or excuse for throwing things, or shooting at them with air rifles!

[Snoggledog]

If they spent less time setting up miles and miles of cones and more time actually doing the work then I really wouldn't have an issue with roadworks. Performing drive by shootings is a little excessive though.

[sideways11]

I'm more concerned that drivers have managed to miss 19% of the workforce. That will be the 19% who never get close enoughto a day's work to get any abuse!

[ceriw]

sideways11 said:

I'm more concerned that drivers have managed to miss 19% of the workforce. That will be the 19% who never get close enoughto a day's work to get any abuse!

ahhh, the 19% are probably sexually abused, roadworkers sweep that sort of thing under the tarmac.

[Attilauk]

which would people whinge more about, the roadworks or what would happen to the roads if we weren't out there repairing them?

i spent 9 months working as a supervising civil engineer on one stretch of the M4, i lost count of the number of times i had some slackjawed moron scream something unintelegable at me. i found if you smile and wave back it really winds them up.

working on motorways is one of the most dangerous areas of the construction industry, people seem to forget that a plastic cone won't stop a 2 tonne car traveling at 70mph...

[DannyR]

There are roadworkers in those coned off areas?

I thought they just liked giving the tarmac a nice summer holiday with none of those pesky cars on them!

In all seriousness though this country does seem a tad slow at dealing with road issues.....although as stated earlier i bet the bosses need the time / costs etc to be stretched out as much as possible

[Adrian W]

Attilauk said:

which would people whinge more about, the roadworks or what would happen to the roads if we weren't out there repairing them?

i spent 9 months working as a supervising civil engineer on one stretch of the M4, i lost count of the number of times i had some slackjawed moron scream something unintelegable at me. i found if you smile and wave back it really winds them up.

working on motorways is one of the most dangerous areas of the construction industry, people seem to forget that a plastic cone won't stop a 2 tonne car traveling at 70mph...

As you've worked on roads please explain why we need quite so many cones and safety stuff compared to the rest of Europe who seem faster, more efficient and less disrupive than here. It seems to me that a whole new industry has sprung up around road works safety.

[Molehall]

Dig a hole on Friday, cone off at least one carriageway, leave hole to "mature" for a week or so, come back, do a day's work, leave work to "ripen", come back, finish work, leave cones out for another week (just in case), finally remove cones.

If these road works guys used a tiny bit of brain power when planning their works, they might not get so much abuse. Mind you, it's the guy on the ground that gets the flack, whilst the fat boss, who's caused the problem in the first place, sits in his office collecting undeserved bonuses.

Charge the road works companies for the time that they've coned off the carriageway. They'd soon wake up!

Edited by Molehall on Monday 13th August 15:09

[Timberwolf]

Almost every motorist gets fed up with the constant barrage of cones, temporary speed restrictions, contraflows, traffic jams and broken surfaces that any reasonably long journey in Britain entails, especially given that it seems to take so much longer and take place so much more often here than anywhere else.

It's just that some of us are better at remembering we're part of a civilised society than others.

[Heebeegeetee]

Molehall said:

Charge the road works companies for the time that they've coned off the carriageway.

They do. Mostly the cones are there for elf n safety reasons, plus due to the numpty driving that goes on in roadworks.

I think though we're gonna get another bunch of 9 - 5ers here posting during work time about how lazy the working class are.

As a trucker I've delivered goods all over, inc Europe 20 years ago, and the Brit construction worker is the hardest set of workers I've ever seen. They have a completely different mindset from office and factory workers in my experience. 90% of the guys I've worked with in the last 20 years have been bloody brilliant, some of them have been absolutely fantastic, literally they have built this country. If everyone worked like they did the country would be fantastic, not least 'cos we'd all be dead by 75 and a fortune would be saved on pensions.

[Attilauk]

Adrian W said:

As you've worked on roads please explain why we need quite so many cones and safety stuff compared to the rest of Europe who seem faster, more efficient and less disrupive than here. It seems to me that a whole new industry has sprung up around road works safety.

actually you may not believe it but British roadworks are some of the most efficient in europe.

as for the large areas of cones, it depends on the job we are doing. if the job requires us to move to several different locations in a certain stretch then its generally safer for the traffic management guys to only have to put out one set of cones than keep changing the layout.

i wouldn't say its a new industry by any means however over the last few years there has been a big push to improve worker safety in all areas of the construction industry. unfortunately for the motorist that means keeping the traffic as far away from the workforce as possible.

[Heebeegeetee]

Adrian W said:

As you've worked on roads please explain why we need quite so many cones and safety stuff compared to the rest of Europe who seem faster, more efficient and less disrupive than here. It seems to me that a whole new industry has sprung up around road works safety.

Have you any evidence that Europe does it better? Mostly, they won't work weekends in Europe, inc Saturday mornings, they have more bank holidays, work fewer hours etc etc.

I know the roads here are shite here, but I'd put that down to the rampant corruption here in the uk. I mean lets be honest, nothing works here so roads are gonna be no different.

I do remember once travelling what seemed the whole length of Italy and roadworks seemed to be spread out the whole way, and I don't think I barely saw a single road worker.

Having said all this, I don't think I've ever seen any abuse of road workers. I've seen some hysterical driving in the road works, but I'd have to think hard of any abuse. I can recall one stupid old duffer sounding his horn once, but he was just a numpty.

[RichB]

I was going to make a flippant remark about the hundreds of miles of coned off roads one sees with absolutely nothing occurring but I see loads of people have beaten me to it For the more serious among you, perhaps British road-workers are hardworking, I have no benchmark to judge them by but it's an undeniable fact that driving around the UK's motorways and dual carriageways one usually sees mile after mile of coned off road with no work happening at all. So, if they have an undeserved reputation as slackers they must know the reasons why!

[mrenaut]

Several years back, and entirely through his own stupidity, during a 30mph set of motorway roadworks a work colleague of mine ended up driving into a works access area between the cones rather than off at the junction he was aiming for.

He was forced to drive about three miles at walking pace until he could rejoin the motorway. He found it extremely embarassing as every road worker took the time to flag him down and politely point out his mistake. Nothing nasty just a lot of p*ss taking, which he took in the spirit in which it was intended.

So occasionally if they are really lucky 100% of road workers get to 'abuse' a car driver.


Now, can anyone tell me why the Severn Bridge is being used to store most of the nation's traffic cones?

[Attilauk]

mrenaut said:

Now, can anyone tell me why the Severn Bridge is being used to store most of the nation's traffic cones?

the first crossing is falling apart! the main cables are heavily corroded and they are installing a dehumidifying system to try and stop any further corrosion.

it will have further weight restrictions within 10 years.

there are a couple of other large bridges which are suffering from similar problems too

[LoftyD]

There is a stretch of main road where I live that is being resurfaced this week. Signs were clearly displayed that the work would take 7 days - Monday to Sunday. It was also being resurfaced last week.
It seems they stopped working on it last Tuesday after only 2 days. Since then a large section has been left grooved, rough and covered in (at least to start with) loose chippings. Most of these are now on the pavement or in my paintwork.

Seems the local planners decided to redo all the alternative routes to the town centre, and to the motorway at the same time as well. Well done.

Ok, rant over. But could someone in the know, explain why even new sections of road or motorway even, are not a patch on those you can find in France? Is there a difference in equipment, or materials or perhaps some other reasonable explanation? Are we simply doing it on the cheap?

[MitchT]

A piece of road near me has been coned-off for weeks and has 'temporary' traffic lights set-up. I can't throw anything at the road workers though because there have never been any there on the numerous occasions that I have passed through the area. Nor is there a visible sign that any work has taken place. Perhaps if the roads were coned-off immediately before work commenced and then the work was undertaken in shifts and the site un-coned immediately after people might not be so irate.

[Killer2005]

Timberwolf said:

Almost every motorist gets fed up with the constant barrage of cones, temporary speed restrictions, contraflows, traffic jams and broken surfaces that any reasonably long journey in Britain entails, especially given that it seems to take so much longer and take place so much more often here than anywhere else.

It's just that some of us are better at remembering we're part of a civilised society than others.