Roadworkers report being abused – verbally and physically – by frustrated drivers
A survey of roadworkers has found many are routinely abused, attacked and sometimes purposefully hit with cars.
The report found nearly two-thirds of traffic controllers were verbally abused on a weekly basis, and one in five had been physically assaulted over the past year.
The survey, by the Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group, included 667 workers across New Zealand who described their experiences and near-misses.
“I was confronted by the frequency,” steering group chair Darren Wu told Nine to Noon.
“We’ve heard a lot of this anecdotally but now we have some statistical data that can help us understand what this real life situation looks like for them and quite frankly it’s unacceptable.
“[They’re] being shouted and yelled at, sworn at or threatened. Drivers [are] refusing to stop, so not following some critical instructions at road works sites that are looking after the wellbeing and safety of road users.”
Let’s be very clear what National have done by weaponising our impatience at the gridlock generated by their mass immigration policies.
Working class lives are collateral damage so angry drivers can race on the roads like lunatics.
Road cones are there to create the illusion of safety so working class men and woman can work in the baking heat under heavy clothing hoping some impatient driver doesn’t kill them.
Why should the families of working men and women fear their whanau aren’t coming home?
We already have terrible work place death rates for workers, 50-60 per year. Reducing the requirements for health and safety will lead to more worker deaths, but that’s an acceptable calculation from the free market right.
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The fact that we have a “Temporary Traffic Management Industry Steering Group” demonstrates the lunacy of the approach to this prior to the current government. Cottage industries such as this have created a significant amount of the inflation we currently experience.
And it is blatantly obvious why the TTM is needed or they wouldn’t be in existence now would they.
Oh bull FtT. Calling a Committee set up to examine claims of violence and abuse of ordinary workers a type of Cottage Industry is vacuous (empty-headed or inane), as so many of your comments are. This is because you won’t think about many subjects, for most you have stock answers that suit the patronising, derisive class you appear to belong to. In fact you are almost a cottage industry committee in yourself. Perhaps there should be another Committee set up to look into the unreasonable? (lacking in reason) behaviour of some commenters here who perpetually don’t agree with you, and dare to criticise your criticisms?
No feel free to criticize me (I believe in freedom of speech) but a little advice play the ball and not the man. Otherwise you look petty.
These are my concerns:
1). Claims of violence and abuse – surely the role of Police to determine whether any crime has been committed, if at all
2). We didn’t need this ‘Industry’ a decade ago. So why now?
3). How much does this add to the cost and delay of civil construction and indirectly to inflation and cost of living (remembering a lot of these are undertaken by local councils who are the main culprits of inflation presently)?
4). Have worksite accidents and injuries within the relevant industries reduced because of this approach?
If the answer to 4). is no and the answer to 3). is a significant number then 2). needs to be adequately explained. Otherwise it is a classical example of a cottage industry.
All the evidence you need to answer your questions is in the above blog. Did you actually read the blog or just the headline?
This “cottage industry”started in the late 90’s, back when being a road worker was the deadliest occupation in NZ, so the answer to 2. is it has actually been around longer. It has long been proven by studies of construction industry businesses, as the one conducted by Mainzeal when I worked for them, that safety and hazard precautions add next too or minimal costs to overall construction costs and or constraints. As to question 4. the FACT that road worker deaths declined by about 50% due to lower speeds in working areas and CLEARLY marked zones to indicate worker areas ie road cones, then the answer to 4. is yes.
I think that categorising the cones setup as a cottage industry got me going. I think that in the near future we will need to have many cottage industries set up and support them as customers as the dreaded tech doom gloom surrounds us.
But I agree that the cones biz had become a nice little earner for some contracting group at our expense. But it’s part of the disease that has to be fought. You can’t get innoculated against neoliberal greed, you have to stay strong-minded, and stand up for yourself I can see. We do have to watch out for the road workers – working on roads is one of our major employers. They need the money and we need the roads, but we also need to stand strong for our humanity and not be disposable bodies eh.
“prior to the current government.”
Haha, classic Frank the Tank, lacking personal responsibility by you and THIS government. Love it!
As a front line health and safety worker you are an idiot.Why should anyone ,worker or employee go to work in the morning and not return home in the evening .Ask yourself how much does it cost when someone is killed at work in lost time ,production and earnings for that persons dependant family .? How much will it cost the taxpayer to support that family over the next 20 years ?
A violent rude stupid nation, at least the ones on the road. Racist too as most of the workers on the road are brown. Completely unacceptable and CoC are to blame. What can be done about it?
Very sweeping Lone Comet. Blame others – the set things we all know and leave it as that. CoC is high on the causes but now can we try to contain our living systems while we wait hopefully to shed these temporary upstarts in power??
I don’t think that it’s at its base, racist. It is everyone living under a state of irritation and frustration and demands to be a quantum person – ie in two places, or doing two slightly different jobs at the same time. To do your own job and other things not allowed for and not in your task schedule but needed to keep the system operating. For many people they are bedevilled by not enough money, uncertainties, hopelessness, unable to get in a secure position where problems of life can be thought about and solved. And disabled from being aware of themselves and their surroundings by constant interruptions from their devices, and their minds which have to be turning over things to be considered all the time. We have been hoist by our own petard; tech was going to be the Great New Thing for Progress ( in a regressive sort of way we now know).
That being said, I notice the irritations causing small violence, the toots from behind while one waits for the right moment to move forward, the lone cyclist toiling near so one can’t turn across them etc. And the rude ignorance of oncoming traffic – no courteous wave when you pull over to allow wider safe vehicle movement in a narrow roadway, the failure to drop speed more cautiously when passing in a narrow space. If there was less fine-grabbing by road police, and more concentration on breeding courtesy and thoughtfulness with instead of fines giving spot prizes for observed good behaviour; a discount on next registration would be good, it would start a new wave of considerate and mindful driving.
I travel extensively and nowhere do I see the cone happy “traffic management” the same way as here in NZ. I have come to the conclusion that this “industry” is purely created to employ the large number of unskilled workers in our low wage economy, in order to get them off the government’s books. If that’s indeed the case, be honest about it.
How much has Brooke the Crook wasted on the road cone phone .In Whanganui a person was sent to investigate and found there were in fact not enough cones and the site was unsafe .I think a total of 230 cones have been moved at what cost ?probably 100k per cone .
Instead of navel gazing, brow furrowing and throwing a tanty, a pragmatic govt. would have adjusted the Traffic Management legislation to something less onerous and moved on. But not these performative snowflakes – they’ll throw the baby out with the bath-water