South West drivers risking roadworkers’ lives to dodge queues

You are stuck in a queue on a South West road, the coned-off lane sitting empty right beside you, and for a second it looks like an easy way through. New figures from National Highways suggest a growing number of drivers are giving in to exactly that temptation, and it is putting the people working behind those cones in danger.

## What counts as an “incursion”

National Highways uses the term incursion for any incident where a vehicle enters a closed-off section of roadworks. Some happen because of a breakdown or a genuine mistake. But the majority, the data shows, are drivers deliberately pushing into a restricted area to gain some benefit for themselves, usually to avoid a queue, a closure or a diversion.

Between January and July this year, 40 drivers deliberately entered closed-off roadwork areas in the South West. Across the whole of England’s motorways and major A roads, 1,633 incursions were recorded last year alone.

## The South West’s figures sit above the national average

Of the incursions recorded in the South West between January and July this year, 57% involved drivers trying to avoid queues, closures or diversions. The national average across the same period was 53%.

It is also part of a longer pattern. Region by region, the share of South West incursions linked to this queue-dodging behaviour has swung from around a third to well over half in recent years, and this year’s 57% is among the highest of any English region, second only to Yorkshire and the North East on 67%.

## “It only takes a second for someone to get hurt”

Melanie Clarke OBE, Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing at National Highways, said the figures show a worrying number of drivers wilfully ignoring roadworks to save time, putting roadworkers and other people at risk. “Our roadworkers have the right to carry out repairs and improvements safely and we ask all drivers to follow signed routes and never enter restricted areas,” she said.

Sinead Ryan, a Traffic Management Foreman for HW Martin, put it more bluntly. “People don’t always realise how dangerous our job can be. We work close to live traffic and, while we can do everything possible to keep ourselves safe, we can’t control the actions of drivers. When someone ignores a closure or drives into a work area, it only takes a second for someone to get hurt. There are real people working behind those cones and all we’re trying to do is get home safely at the end of the day.”

## When it goes wrong, everyone’s journey gets longer

The knock-on effect of unsafe driving through roadworks is not limited to the moment itself. Recently, after a series of particularly close calls, a section of the M1 in Hertfordshire had to be closed completely to keep workers safe, sending drivers on a 10-mile diversion.

It is a pattern playing out on National Highways’ network well beyond that one stretch of motorway. Incursions are being recorded across every region, on both major construction schemes and everyday maintenance work, and the response when driver behaviour turns genuinely dangerous is the same: close the road and protect the people on it, whatever that does to the traffic behind them.

## The penalty, when it comes

Deliberately entering a closed-off roadworks area is not a formality. On the A47 near Wisbech in May 2023, a BMW driver caught entering a closed-off area during overnight resurfacing works later received a four-month driving ban and £788 in fines and costs. A similar incident on the A1 at Barnack Junction, near Stamford, in July 2022 ended in a successful prosecution, with the driver handed a driving ban and a financial penalty.

The most serious came at the A2 Bean Interchange in Kent in February 2024, when a vehicle entered a full carriageway closure and collided with a traffic management vehicle. The driver was later convicted of dangerous driving and received a two-year suspended prison sentence, a two-year driving ban and 200 hours of community service.