WJ Group backs Road Safety Week with focus on safer journeys

To mark the start of Road Safety Week (16–22 November 2025), the annual campaign led by road safety charity Brake, WJ Group (WJ) is highlighting how a combination of safer vehicle design, journey planning and culture can work together to reduce deaths and serious injuries on the road network.

Brake cites that more than a third of UK road deaths involve someone who was driving for work^[1]. It is using this year’s theme, ‘safe vehicles save lives’, to explore how modern fleet technology, design and working practices can protect all road users, workers and pedestrians.

In response, WJ, known for delivering road marking and highway safety services is focusing on three areas.  These include engineering out risk, building stronger systems around work-related driving, and changing behaviours across its workforce.

Engineering out risk on live roads

Reducing the number of operatives on the carriageway or the frequency of working on live roads clearly reduces the time spent in high-risk environments.

WJ has invested heavily in new vehicles and equipment designed to keep its teams away from live traffic wherever possible.  For example, pre-marking vehicles guided by GPS and cameras can mark out road lines in advance of resurfacing and reapply them afterwards using the same mapped data.  Elsewhere, specialist vehicles such as WJ ThermoPrint automate the installation of thermoplastic symbols, letters and shapes from within the cab instead of on foot.

Across the fleet, visibility and collision-avoidance systems are factory-fitted as standard, rather than retrofitted manually to reduce the risk of low-speed incidents around worksites, particularly during reversing and close-quarter manoeuvres.

Systems and culture around occupational road risk

Alongside engineering changes, WJ has assessed how it manages journeys to and from work sites, treating occupational road risk in the same way as site-based risk.

Work-related driving incidents and near misses are reported and reviewed so that trends can be identified and acted on, with clear expectations set for journey planning, speed management and vehicle checks.

Vehicles are equipped with digital hazard warnings enabled via Safety Cloud™ created by HAAS Alert, which integrates with navigation systems. This can alert drivers when works are taking place ahead and prompt them to slow down, change lane or alter their route in good time.

WJ’s driver behaviour scheme, now in its sixth year, promotes safe driving by using vehicle telematics to monitor factors such as acceleration, braking, speed, driving style and fuel use. Drivers are graded into performance bands, with ongoing rewards for those achieving higher scores.

Championing sector-wide change in occupational road risk

WJ is also helping to drive change at sector level. Nick Holt, Managing Director of WJ North, plays a leading role working with National Highways’ Driving for Better Business programme and the Supply Chain Safety Leadership Group (SCSLG), championing the principle that journeys to and from site should be treated as seriously as safety on site.

The Occupational Road Risk (ORR) working group of the SCSLG has developed a common intent document, which will be released shortly, setting out shared expectations for how work-related driving is managed across the Strategic Road Network. WJ Group supports this approach and is aligning its policies, training and fleet management with the commitments it contains.

Nick Holt, Managing Director, WJ North and SCSLG Serious Risk Lead for Occupational Road Risk, said:

“Driving for work remains one of the highest risks faced by our industry. Historically it has not always had the same focus as site-based safety, but that is changing. By engineering out exposure to live traffic and putting clearer systems around work-related driving, we can change behaviours and make our roads safer for everyone.”

To learn more about WJ’s approach to road safety, visit https://bit.ly/3K7KP83

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