The campaign is being run jointly by A-One+, Amey, Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Enterprise Mouchel, Connect Roads, Connect Plus (M25), Galliford Try, Sir Robert McAlpine and Skanska UK, who all provide services to the Highways Agency.
All companies are members of the Roadworkers Safety Forum, a group dedicated to reducing accidents and injuries to roadworkers.
Every year there are hundreds of incursions into roadworks which put road workers' lives at risk and lead to deaths and serious injury. These adverts focus on the lack of awareness of some drivers that roadworks are a place of work for thousands of people who have a right to expect a safe working environment.
The first message consists of a series of sirens and bells and makes a direct appeal to HGV drivers to 'wake up' and remember that workers are 'made of flesh and blood'.
The second message plays a recording of a 'sat-nav' voice instructing a driver to plough through orange cones and kill a father of two, and ends with the message "The next time you're approaching road works, think about the road workers, think about their families." A final message replays the sounds of a crash and reminds listeners that roadworks are a work place like any other.
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The adverts are being broadcast during the Highways Agency's Road Safety Awareness Week, which will see awareness events taking place across the country, including the release of some CCTV footage that shows some of the worst incursions into roadworks on a motorway.
Carillion contracts director Duncan Elliot said: "The safety and well-being of all our people is always our first priority. Put simply we want everyone at Carillion to return home safely at the end of their working day. Along with the rest of the industry we realise that for some reason a small minority of drivers still find it acceptable to put road workers' lives in danger by not taking care when they go through roadworks.
“These adverts are about reminding road users that road works are like any other work place, and our workers have just as much right to work in a safe environment."
A-One+ managing director Andy Jamieson added: "We launched these adverts locally last year and they proved very successful so we were delighted our colleagues across the industry have joined to support us in the first ever national radio campaign to raise awareness of roadworkers safety."
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