Road workers. These men and women behind the scenes carry out their work in conditions that we drivers make dangerous, even deadly. They are there to protect us in the event of a breakdown or an accident, but certain behaviour on the road can cost them their lives. We’re all glad to have them with us in the event of a problem, and we’re all concerned about their safety.
1/ A behind-the-scenes profession in the spotlight
No doubt you’ve come across them before. We see them on the sides of roads and motorways, dressed in fluorescent waistcoats. It’s hard not to see them. Speeding along at 130km/h (on a French motorway), we sometimes pass within a few dozen centimetres of them, unaware of the danger this can represent.
This is a profession that rarely makes the headlines for its successful interventions. But there are plenty of them. In 2023, more than 1 million interventions took place on Europe’s 80,000 km of motorways. Road workers include patrols, breakdown services and law enforcement officers.
2/ The vertigo of numbers
On a European scale, as on a national scale, the number of road accidents is very high. In 2022, 20,640 people were killed on European roads. 10% of this figure is accounted for by pedestrians. These are either road patrollers or pedestrians who have left their vehicle when it breaks down. This represents more than 200 deaths. Among the poor performers in Europe, Romania comes top with 86 deaths per million inhabitants, while France has 50 deaths per million inhabitants. The best performers are Sweden and Denmark, with 22 and 26 road deaths per million inhabitants respectively.
To return to the subject of road workers, and to focus on the figures for France, here are a few figures provided by the Autoroutes personnel website, which records accidents, injuries and deaths:
In 2023, road workers were involved in 144 accidents, 18 of which involved bodily injury. Of these injured men and women, 16 required transport to hospital and 6 remained in hospital. Sadly, there was 1 fatality in 2023. By way of comparison with the current year, one of our road patrol officers has already died in the line of duty.
3/ 7 seconds too late
According to a survey by Asfa, HGV drivers spend 9% of their driving time on their phones. The average time spent on the phone is 32 seconds, including calls. This happens more than ten times an hour. In almost all cases, a hands-free kit is used. So the problem is not the calls, but another use of the phone.
When drivers pick up their phones, they take their eyes off the road for an average of 2.4 seconds. However, this figure can rise to 7 seconds, or 175m (at 90km/h) without looking at the road.
Be careful, though, not to go on a witch hunt! HGV drivers are good drivers. They account for an average of 15% of traffic and “only” 14% of fatal accidents, i.e. a minority. However, as far as road workers are concerned, they account for 1 in every 2 accidents involving them.
4/ The future in automation ?
It cannot be said often enough, but prevention must never cease to exist. It’s important to make everyone on the road aware of their responsibilities in order to protect and save lives. However, a little technological help with certain tasks could make it possible to provide agents with greater safety in specific cases.
Europe Service (France) has developed the E-cône. This is an articulated robot capable of placing traffic cones and signs on motorways. In the event of an accident or roadworks, there would no longer be any need for a “human” agent to demarcate the area.
This time, Vinci is studying AI to warn of imminent threats on the road. This highly practical AI system is due to be fitted to more than 200 vehicles by the end of 2024. It takes the form of a camera located at the rear of the vehicle, with a range of around 250m. An AI analyses the trajectories of the vehicles live, and if it judges that any of them could be dangerous for the officer, an alarm sounds and a red light flashes.
According to Johan Moreau, a road workers (patrol officer) since 2022 and a volunteer firefighter for 20 years, “It’s a welcome addition, and even with the windows closed and the radio on, you’ll hear it. The full interview can be found on TV5 Monde.
