The Numbers
The 2025 Traffic Controller Safety Survey, which captured responses from approximately 700 New Zealand road workers, has produced findings that should disturb anyone who drives through a road work zone. Thirty percent of traffic controllers report feeling unsafe at work. Nineteen percent experienced physical assault in the past year. Four point three percent were struck by vehicles. The majority of respondents reported verbal abuse on a regular basis, and most said road users fail to stop when signalled to do so more than once per week.
New Zealand road workers rated their sense of safety lower than their counterparts in Australia — a country that has itself grappled seriously with road worker safety in recent years.
What Road Workers Face
Traffic controllers work in an environment that combines live traffic, compressed sight lines, varying driver behaviour, and the physical demands of outdoor work in all weather conditions. Their job is to keep road users and site workers safe — often in circumstances where neither group fully cooperates. The specific hazards include:
- Vehicles that do not reduce speed in accordance with posted work zone limits
- Drivers who fail to stop when given a stop sign, creating immediate risk to workers and other road users
- Verbal abuse that escalates without warning and creates psychological pressure in a job that requires sustained concentration
- Physical altercations that have no place in any work environment but are documented as a regular occurrence in this one
- Vehicle incursions into work zones, including strikes that result in serious injury
The Physical and Psychological Impact
The consequences of this environment are not limited to the moments of incident. Workers who have been struck, threatened, or abused carry those experiences into subsequent shifts. The psychological load of working in an environment where violence is a documented occupational hazard — not an exceptional event — affects concentration, decision-making, and long-term health. Turnover in traffic control is high, and the survey results suggest retention is a direct consequence of conditions rather than pay alone.
What the Industry Is Calling For
The survey’s findings have produced a set of specific recommendations from the industry, directed at government, WorkSafe, and the New Zealand Transport Agency:
- Stronger enforcement of work zone speed limits, including camera-based automated enforcement in high-risk sites
- Expanded use of physical separation technology — barriers, delineators, and remote-controlled signalling — to reduce human exposure to traffic
- Increased penalties for assault and intimidation of road workers
- Public awareness campaigns on road worker safety, similar to those conducted in Australia
Traffic controllers work to keep everyone on and around road work sites safer. The minimum obligation of road users is to follow their instructions. The minimum obligation of the system is to protect them when road users do not.
