Residents reminded to drive safely around waste and recycling collection crews

The council is making the plea during national Road Safety Week after seeing an increase in the number of incidents where crew members have experienced a risk to their safety by other road users.

"Road Safety Week provides a good opportunity to remind people to take care on our roads," says Councillor Mark Chilton, Cabinet Member for Finance, Corporate Services and Chichester Contract Services, at Chichester District Council. "As a council, we do all that we can to protect both our residents and waste and recycling collection crews, and a range of precautions are in place. For example, crews wear full high-vis clothing to help improve their visibility to other drivers and motorists.

"Our waste and recycling collection vehicles are also fitted with CCTV cameras which helps with reporting incidents by recording footage, and vehicle registrations and details.

"Our collection crews are our very own waste warriors. They perform such an important role in making sure our district is clean and tidy by completing their collections, and they take every precaution to complete their rounds safely. We are asking those on the district's roads to help us keep our crews safe by taking extra care when driving close to our staff and vehicles because we have seen an increase in near miss incidents reported this year.

"These are incidents where something more serious, such as harm, injury or worse could have happened but was fortunately avoided. Some recent examples have included a third-party driver mounting the pavement to drive around the crew and their vehicle, putting themselves, our crew, and other members of the public at risk.

"In another case, someone had not noticed or ignored the traffic management put in place for our crews to litter pick along the roadside. They entered the section of road that our crew had coned off, and the driver had to suddenly stop. If it hadn't been for the quick actions and vigilance of our operatives on these occasions, then these near misses could have been extremely serious.

"As it is Road Safety Week, we thought that this would be the perfect time to remind our residents and visitors to please be patient when driving across the district and give our crews the space they need when they see them. Please wait until it is safe to drive around them and their vehicles while they do their vital work.

Road Safety Week, an annual campaign organised by the road safety charity Brake, is running from 17 until 23 November. The campaign encourages communities, organisations, and schools to get involved and share important road safety messages. If people would like to find out more about the campaign they can visit Brake's 'Road Safety Week' page (opens new window).

Date of release: 20 November 2024

Reference: 4408