A survey of road workers has found many are routinely abused, attacked and sometimes purposefully hit with cars.

The report found nearly two-thirds of traffic controllers were verbally abused on a weekly basis, and one in five had been physically assaulted over the past year.

The survey, by the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group, included 667 workers across New Zealand who described their experiences and near-misses.

“I was confronted by the frequency,” steering group chairman Darren Wu told Nine to Noon.

“We’ve heard a lot of this anecdotally but now we have some statistical data that can help us understand what this real life situation looks like for them and quite frankly it’s unacceptable.

“[They’re] being shouted and yelled at, sworn at or threatened. Drivers [are] refusing to stop, so not following some critical instructions at road works sites that are looking after the wellbeing and safety of road users.”

In some cases, frustrated drivers had struck workers with their cars.

“There were about 5% of road workers that were actually struck by a moving vehicle in the past year. Most of these were at low speeds, but some of these were at life-threatening forces,” he said.

“Either someone wasn’t paying attention, whether they’re a distracted driver or speeding and fail to stop in time, [or] they don’t want to stop... There are anecdotal cases where I’ve been told that drivers are so frustrated they don’t want to listen and they don’t want to wait.”

Wu said road workers regularly experienced near-misses.

“Almost 50% have experienced near misses both from distracted drivers and speeding drivers. Either not abiding by the temporary speed, or distracted by something like a mobile phone so by the time they do spot something there’s a really near-miss.”

But he acknowledged that it had become common for drivers to ignore temporary speed limits.

Road workers regularly experienced near-misses. Photo / Bevan Conley

“Sometimes those temporary speeds – we know we need to do a little bit of work around this – don’t always make sense,” he said.

“So for example, if they’ve just laid some fresh chip seal on the road they will keep temporary speeds out there because it’s slippery. But if there’s no road workers out there, we know that sometimes road users will just ignore the speeds.”

He said the industry could do more to alleviate that issue, and others.

“It’s well known, and we appreciate this, that roadworks can be disruptive and frustrating,” Wu said.

“We as a sector have an opportunity to improve the way in which we communicate.”

RNZ