If you see more people than usual wearing orange today, there’s a good reason. It’s Go Orange Day, part of National Work Zone Awareness Week. Today, the highway construction industry invites everyone to wear orange to show their support of work zone safety.
This year marks the eighth straight year that National Work Zone Awareness Week has included Go Orange Day. Each year, Go Orange Day has gained more traction as more staff members and families and friends of highway construction workers join in the fun.
At InfraStripe we’d like to encourage everyone to share pictures of themselves wearing orange on social media. Posting pictures is an easy way to amplify the message of work zone safety, helping Go Orange Day — and the entire National Work Zone Awareness Week — reach a bigger audience.
Reaching a bigger audience can save lives. Struck-by-vehicle is the second leading cause of death in the construction industry. Often, these deadly collisions result from inattentive driving. By encouraging drivers to slow down and pay attention, we can reduce the number of fatal collisions.
We can’t encourage safer driving without first helping people understand the problem. That’s why National Work Zone Awareness Week exists: To share the importance of work zone safety with everyone — to make sure drivers know construction workers depend on them to keep work zones safe for everybody.
So if you see people wearing orange today, please tell them thank you for participating, for making more people aware that attentive driving in work zones can save lives. And ask if you can take a picture for social media. If they say yes, be sure to share with the hashtag #Orange4Safety.