NC Work Zone Awareness Week memorializes deaths, injuries from crashes

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NCDOT Work Zone event
Memorial image from the NCDOT's Twitter feed

North Carolina Work Zone Awareness week started on April 5.

The North Carolina Governor’s Highway Safety Program (GHSP), along with leadership from N.C. Department of Transportation (NCDOT), North Carolina Division of the Federal Highway Administration, Carolinas Chapter of American Traffic Safety Services Association and the Northampton County Sheriff’s Office kicked off the week with a ceremony featuring the National Work Zone Memorial.

The memorial will be publicly displayed (April 5-7) at the Welcome Center along Interstate 95 South in Northampton County.

It commemorates 37 NCDOT employees who died in state work zones since 1979. The NCDOT accounted for more than 6,200 work zone crashes in the previous year alone due to distracted driving and speeding, WECT-6 News reported.

Wednesday April 6 (today) is ORANGE Day; workers are encouraged to dress in orange and with a traffic safety message to drive safe in the work zone. On April 7, law enforcement and contractors will visit a work zone in their town/county, take a picture with a traffic safety message (such as “slow down and don’t be distracted in the work zone”) and post on the images on social media.

The memorial honors those who died in work zones, including work zone workers, motorists, pedestrians, law enforcement officers, public safety officials (i.e., firefighters and paramedics) and children. There are currently 1,602 names on the memorial including 37 North Carolina fallen workers.

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