Highways England<\/a> and its partners are joining forces to create automated vehicles that lay cones on the UK\u2019s motorways and major A roads \u2013 and prevent workers having to lift an average 10 tonnes of equipment per shift.<\/p>\n Cones are required to protect road users and road workers while vital improvements or maintenance<\/a> is carried out on the busy routes.<\/p>\n Footage released on 17 January shows how terrifying it can be for the road workers who traditionally put the cones out, working in tandem from the back of a vehicle as motorway traffic thunders past just yards away.<\/p>\n As the workers manually lift and place each of the cones, the footage shows vans and lorries rushing by.<\/p>\n