Salisbury road workers to wear body cameras after BB Gun attacks
Abuse of road workers is a rising issue
Road workers in Salisbury are to start wearing body cameras following an incident were they were shot at with BB Guns on Fisherton Street.
Abuse of road workers is a rising issue, with contractor Milestone Infrastructure telling Greatest Hits Radio they've recorded 115 cases of road worker abuse in the past 12 months.
Richard Hemingway is their Health Safety and Wellbeing Director and told GHR that the requirement of body cameras, for people in any job, is a sad reflection of the society we are living in.
"You see the blue light services, the emergency services use body cameras, but you can go into a local supermarket now and especially the customer service people will have body cameras fitted to their jackets.
"Sadly, that's a reflection on the society that we're living in."
Wiltshire Police are investigating the attack in Fisherton Street.
Shocked, but not surprised
Mr Hemingway told us he was shocked when he hear about the Salisbury incident, but that he also felt it was inevitable.
"This is not the first instance of our staff being attacked," he said, adding there had been previous case involving a ball bearing being fired from a catapult: "Unfortunately we're starting to see increasing amounts of this level of violence towards our staff."
With roughly two reports of abuse per week, there's concern over the issue.
Mr Hemingway says it's not only the number of cases they're experiencing, it's the severity of them too.
"They vary in severity from simple verbal abuse shouts. It could be racist in nature and certainly very derogatory, but can also be physical assault, pushing, shoving. We've had assault to the point where people have been beaten up and need to go to hospital.
"One instance we've had a traffic management operative knocked down and had his leg broken by a motorist."
Mr Hemingway revealed that the motorist in question did return to the scene after initially driving off and is now being prosecuted.
This is how we have to keep staff safe now
He said that staff deserve more respect as they're carrying out important work on roads and highways - even if they can be frustrating and cause delays.
"You wouldn't go into a school or into a hospital and abuse the doctor or the teacher. So why is it acceptable? Because perhaps our staff work outside in the public environment that they go through that level of abuse," he said.
It's hoped that the addition of body cameras will act as a deterrent to abuse - but it will allow contractors to hold offenders to account.
Mr Hemingway has this warning to people who do abuse his staff.
"To the very small minority of people who undertake this behaviour, we will issue that footage to the police and if the police have have the right footage, they'll give it to the CPS and the CPS will prosecute.
"That's unfortunately what we have to do to keep our workforce safe," he said.
But their efforts aren't stopping there, as the wider industry as banding together to stop abuse of road workers.
Through the 'Stamp It Out' campaign, Milestone are promoting the awareness of the abuse their employees face to the public and to political parties.
Mr Hemingway said: "We are campaigning for a change in the law to reflect, to have it reflected that our workers."
Require protection and recognition, potentially in in documents like the Highway Code.