bureaucracy as usual

Posted on 28-05-2010 13:34 | By Patt

Mr Rod James, if you and NZTA are really are into traffic safety and want to avoid a future fatality, you could do something about the morning traffic jam north at Wairoa bridge. All it would take would be a simple sign. Drivers, approaching the bridge in slow traffic, feel compelled to stop to let waiting traffic off Te Puna Station Road MERGE. The crossing is a T-intersection and NOT a merge-like-a-zip. This misguided friendliness has the consequence that the flow of traffic towards Bethlehem comes to a total standstill. Far more consequential and possibly fatal is what happens further back, where the traffic backs up to the blind corners between Te Puna and the bridge. I invite you to experience the feeling when you come around the corner finding traffic has come to a total standstill. Of course, as careful driver, you manage to brake in time. But then watch what goes on behind you as big busses and heavy trucks break with locked up wheels, trying to take evasive action, coming to a grinding halt, sometimes either in the gutter or in the oncoming lane, and then desperately trying to cut back into line. It is only a matter of pure luck that all the accidents in the morning have not resulted in a fatality yet. All this could be prevented with a simple sign asking drives to refrain from out of place friendliness to let merge and to maintain traffic flow. But since when was bureaucracy simple or adhered to common sense.