What are the causes of roadwork crashes?

Answer

Not much is known about the causes of roadwork crashes. Older research based on police reports found that, in the urban area, driving errors in yielding, reversing, and crossing were common contributory factors for this crash type. For crashes outside the urban area, speeding was a common crash cause (40%) [25].

A number of urban crashes are shown to be caused by mostly vulnerable road users (mainly cyclists) and other slow traffic turning into a road that is closed due to roadworks and then crashing with construction traffic, falling, or ending up in a ditch [25]. An assessment of fifty roadwork locations shows that cyclists are often given insufficient consideration. The road section is not always properly closed off, it is not always clear what adaptations in cyclist behaviour are expected, and the traffic sign ‘Cyclists dismount’ is sometimes incorrectly applied [26].

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Traffic congestion and roadworks

Traffic congestion occurs when traffic demand exceeds road capacity, or when an incident such as a traffic crash, a vehicle breakdown occurs or Meer

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