National Work Zone Awareness Week

National Work Zone Awareness Week aims to raise awareness about work zone safety before construction projects pick up during the warmer months.

National Work Zone Awareness Week is an annual event across the United States. NWZAW aims to raise awareness about work zone safety before construction projects pick up during the warmer months. There is so much importance to spreading the word about safety in and around roadway work zones. National Work Zone Awareness Week has partnerships between state departments of transportation (DOT), national road safety organizations, government agencies, private companies, and individuals. 

The work zone awareness campaigns effort include: 

• Initiate efforts to raise awareness of the need for more caution when driving through work zones to decrease fatalities and injuries;
• Establish and promote a uniform set of safety tips;
• The value of training and importance of best practices in regard to work zone safety would be promoted among individuals in the private sector, industry, and roadway workers;
• Reach out to both roadway workers and contractors to communicate possible effects of motorists’ behavior in response to traffic delays, and advise on what steps might be taken to lessen negative behavior; and
• Outreach efforts would be made to work with entities involved with work zone safety and to form partnerships.

A staple of work zone awareness week is National Go Orange Day which is held on April 13th. National Orange Day is designed to help raise National Work Zone Awareness Week awareness. It’s a time for individuals and organizations across the country to show their support for work zone safety by wearing orange. 

A new addition to work zone awareness week is a moment of silence. Moment of Silence is on April 15th.  It is to remember the people whose lives were lost in a work zone incident. This is a meaningful gesture to pay our respects to the men and women in the work zone. 

“National Work Zone Awareness Week is meant to heighten everyone’s awareness of the need to be alert when approaching a work zone and then traveling safely through the area,” said ATSSA President & CEO Stacy Tetschner. “Everyone’s safety is at risk in these work zones and we want everyone—workers, motorists, and their passengers–to get to their destinations and home again safely.”