WHEREAS, National Work Zone Awareness Week is an annual spring campaign held at the start of construction season to encourage safe driving through streets, roads, and highway work zones; and

WHEREAS, the week emphasizes the importance of motorists slowing to posted speed limits, eliminating distractions, and remaining vigilant for roadway workers, their equipment, and roadside vehicles; and

WHEREAS, on the morning of January 13, 2026, a crash occurred in a Maine Department of Transportation work zone on I-95 southbound near mile marker 127 in Waterville, claiming the lives of two MaineDOT employees, James Brown and Dwayne Campbell, and injuring two others; and

WHEREAS, there are nearly 600 work zone crashes each year in Maine; and

WHEREAS, there were more than 800 fatal crashes in work zones across the United States in 2023; and

WHEREAS, the theme for the 2026 National Work Zone Awareness Week is “Safe Actions Save Lives”; and

WHEREAS, “Go Orange Day,” observed Wednesday, April 22, 2026, encourages individuals across the nation to wear orange in support of the men and women who work tirelessly to keep our roads safe; and

WHEREAS, a national moment of silence will be held on Friday, April 24, to honor the lives lost in work zones;

NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that I, Janet T. Mills, Governor of the State of Maine, do hereby proclaim the week of April 20-24, 2026 as

National Work Zone Awareness Week

throughout the State of Maine, and I urge all citizens to recognize that keeping everyone safe in work zones and on our roadways is our collective responsibility.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the Great Seal of the State to be hereunto affixed GIVEN under my hand at Augusta this thirteenth day of April Two Thousand Twenty-Six