ARDOT, MODOT Honor National Work Zone Awareness Week

The Arkansas and Missouri Department of Transportations are a part of a national week.

The Week of April 20 is National Work Zone Awareness Week. 

For the Arkansas Department of Transportation, they held a kick-off ceremony on Friday at the Fallen Worker Memorial in Little Rock. The event featured remarks from ARDOT Director Jared Wiley, Lt. Gov. Leslie Rutledge, Arkansas Highway Police Sgt. Shufford Day, and Sandra Skaggs, wife of ARDOT employee Terry Skaggs who was injured in a work zone. 

The ceremony highlighted the importance of motorist working together with ARDOT  to keep facilitate work zone safety.

The concept of working together is also the theme of a release from the Missouri Department of Transportation, reminding motorists the importance of not driving while distracted, especially in work zones.

More information on Work Zone Safety can be found at the ARDOT and MODOT Websites while the full release from MODOT can be read below:

On any given day during construction season, Missouri will have as many as 1,000 active work zones in place. Within these work zones are hard-working people dedicated to building and maintaining a transportation system that every driver relies on to reach their destination safely.

As part of National Work Zone Awareness Week running April 20-24, MoDOT is asking drivers to "Work With Us" by slowing down, putting down their phones and being patient and courteous through work zones. These efforts are essential to protect highway workers and other motorists inside the hundreds of work zones expected across the state this construction season. 

While overall traffic fatalities in Missouri have decreased over the past three years, work zone fatalities have stayed consistent. Distracted driving and driving too fast for the conditions remain the top contributors to work zone crashes. In 2025, 24 people were killed in Missouri work zone crashes. Distracted driving contributed to at least 11 of those fatalities as well as more than 400 work zone crashes overall.

2025 also saw MoDOT vehicles struck 50 times, 16 more than the previous year. These vehicles are often the only barrier protecting highway workers from a potentially fatal crash, so this increase serves as a reminder of how important it is for motorists to pay attention to changing traffic conditions, follow posted warnings and merge well before reaching lane closures.

You can find more about the department's work zone safety efforts on MoDOT's website.