Kicking Off National Work Zone Awareness Week: Drive Safe. Work Safe. Save Lives
OTW is proud to be participating in this years’ National Work Zone Awareness Week (NWZAW). It will be observed from April 26th through the 30th with this year’s theme of “Drive Safe. Work Safe. Save Lives.”
What is new this year?
This year’s national kickoff event is scheduled for tomorrow, April 27th in Michigan, sponsored by Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). We will be participating virtually throughout the week at events and on social media to promote safety for all people in work zones. You can check out the full list of events here.
Why we participate
As a founding member of the Utah ATSSA chapter, work zone safety continues to be an important cause for us at OTW Safety. This is an issue that affects everyone, not only the men and women who are working to build our roads, bridges, and highways, but all of us that drive near them. We all have the responsibility to commit to reducing work zone fatalities down to zero in our home state of Utah, and across the country.
why NWZAW continues to be important
Statistics from the National Work Zone Safety Information Clearinghouse show there were 762 fatal crashes in work zones resulting in 842 deaths in 2019. In addition, 135 roadway workers were killed in work zones. The vast majority of people killed in work zones were motorists, passengers and pedestrians. Those statistics demonstrate the importance of work zone safety and participating in NWZAW to spread the message that everyone has a role in getting roadway workers home safely.
Additionally, there were a total of 123,000 work zone crashes in 2018—of which 31,000 were injury-involved crashes that resulted in 45,000 injuries, which underscores the need to observe work zone speeds and eliminate distractions when approaching and driving through work zones. If you are interested in getting more data for your individual state or for a different year, you can visit workzonesafety.org for more info.
What can you do?
As part of NWZAW, everyone is encouraged to participate in Go Orange Day on April 28, a day when individuals are encouraged to wear orange as a visual reminder of work zones. Post photos of Go Orange Day activities on social media using the hashtags #NWZAW and #GoOrange4Safety. To learn more about NWZAW, visit nwzaw.org.
Join us
This important work must continue until we can achieve zero work zone fatalities, therefore we look forward to participating throughout the week and doing our part to promote NWZAW, we hope you will join us.
