For roadworks contractors
Roadworks safety file
The main hazard is traffic, and it is not under your control.
Generate your safety file — R500What the law requires
There is no separate safety file law for roadworks contractors. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and the Construction Regulations 2014 are national and trade-neutral — they apply to roadworks work exactly as they apply to every other trade on a South African site, with no minimum project size exemption.
What changes with the trade is the content. The regulations require the file to reflect the work actually being carried out, so the risk assessments, method statements, appointments and registers in a roadworks file are driven by the hazards roadworks contractors actually create.
Why a roadworks file is different
Roadworks is unusual in that the dominant risk comes from members of the public travelling at speed through the work area. Everything else — plant, hot bitumen, night work — is secondary to keeping vehicles and people apart, and the traffic accommodation arrangement is the single most important document in the file.
What to get right in a roadworks safety file
These are the hazards that should be reflected properly in the risk assessments and method statements — the parts of the file that are easiest to leave generic and hardest to defend when they are.
Live traffic through the work zone
Temporary traffic accommodation, laid out to the South African Road Traffic Signs Manual, is what separates workers from vehicles. Signage, taper lengths, cones and barriers are a designed arrangement rather than a matter of judgement, and the layout should be recorded and checked as conditions change.
Night work and visibility
Roadworks runs at night to reduce disruption, which means reduced visibility, driver fatigue on the public side and glare from work lighting. High-visibility clothing to the correct class, lighting that does not dazzle approaching drivers, and fatigue arrangements for your own crew all belong in the assessment.
Hot bitumen and asphalt
Bitumen is handled at temperatures that cause immediate deep burns, and it adheres to skin, which makes the injury worse than the initial contact. Handling procedures, appropriate protection and immediate first aid arrangements for burns need to be specific rather than generic.
Documents a roadworks scope typically triggers
On top of the core compliance pack every construction file carries, roadworks contractors should expect to need these. The exact set depends on your scope.
- —Traffic management plan and template; traffic management and street works procedure
- —Street works method statement and risk assessment
- —Traffic flagman and traffic safety officer appointments with the training register
- —Vehicle checklists and construction vehicle appointments (CR 23)
- —First aid procedure and first aid box checklists
- —Managing fatigue toolbox talk for night shifts
What is the most important document in a roadworks safety file?
The temporary traffic accommodation plan. It is the control for the hazard most likely to kill someone on a roadworks site, it has to follow the South African Road Traffic Signs Manual rather than a foreman's preference, and it is the first thing a roads authority will ask to see.
More background: what a construction safety file is and what a compliant template must contain.
Get your roadworks safety file in 8 minutes
MySafetyFile generates a complete, site-specific construction safety file — drawn from a library of 351 documents across 9 categories — in about 8 minutes for R500. Register free, enter your project and scope, and download a file that is ready to print or submit. There is no monthly fee, and one account handles unlimited projects.
Every document is aligned with the OHS Act and Construction Regulations 2014, developed by a SAIOSH-registered practitioner, and carries a unique identification code that ties it to the account and project it was generated for.