EMPLOYERS should highlight the importance of their drivers keeping to speed limits through roadworks after a surge in the numbers deaths and injuries to road workers last year, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has claimed.

According to the Highways Agency, the number of injuries and deaths to workers on motorways and trunk roads rose from 77 in 2001 to 102 in 2002.

A spokesman for RoSPA said: 'An employer's duty of care does not just extend to its employees. They are responsible for managing the risk to their drivers, and the risk to others, which could be affected by their drivers' actions.'