One of the biggest hassles for road workers has been the disdain many motorists show for road work sites and their driving speeds through them.
The Northland AA District Council meeting with Steve Mātene, NZTA’s Northland Systems Manager, was interesting and informative.
The purpose was to update motorist representatives about the significant state highway works programme in Northland, but also to suggest how the everyday motorist can help our roading agencies to do their job.
We want to acknowledge the huge work maintenance programme underway on all Northland roads, despite the frequent weather events we have experienced.
We also recognise that one of the biggest hassles for road workers has been the disdain many motorists have for road worksites, and their driving speeds through these sites.
The AA regularly surveys its members about their driving experiences, and consistently, one of the biggest beefs is seeing road works when there is no apparent work going on.
The continued prevalence of multiple road cones and overzealous temporary traffic management was another matter, but back to the temporary speed limits at road works.
Many motorists do not appreciate that once the physical works within a road worksite is complete and the workers have gone, that the road still needs to bed down.
Higher speeds then, is likely to just rip up the work that has just been done.
Road worksites, therefore, have two recognised temporary speed limits which reflect what is happening at the site.
It’s 30km/h, if road workers are present, if the road is reduced to one lane, or if there are stop/go controls.
When the bulk of the work has been completed, a 50km/h temporary speed limit on the open road is appropriate because the metal chips of the road are still settling down, there are no road markings, and high speed or heavy braking just breaks down the seal.
So, a 50km/h temporary speed limit is necessary around these unattended sites, to consolidate the road repair.
Windscreen repair companies often have a field day at this time of the year as a result of speeding through road sites, and it’s usually the complying driver who is the victim.
As well as flying chips from speeding, there may be “loss of control” crashes created by distracted rubberneckers, and that justifies the need for caution. Speed camera fines can also be brutal for impatient drivers at road work sites.
The issue of the multiple road cones, multiple trucks with drivers on their phones, and seemingly unjustified holdups just will not go away.
The Government hotline set up in June to report excessive use of road cones has had an early closure due to a lack of identification of non-compliant road sites.
There’s been an average of only around 20 sites a week being reported, the vast majority of which were compliant.
It’s the compliance that is the problem. This is contained in a 567-page tome with 1450 clauses, which lays out in painstaking detail how to use road cones, temporary speed limits, stop/go, and other devices to manage risk and disruption on our roads.
Realistically meeting these guidelines requires more cones than necessary to manage the risk.
Being conscious of their own risk of non-compliance, many contracting companies follow the clauses religiously in a tick box approach, fearing legal consequences, which are largely overblown.
Every extra cone, sign and barrier is an additional hazard.
If the whole worksite appears to be unnecessarily conservative, frustrated drivers are more likely to speed through and abuse workers. Excessive cones and poor driver behaviour reinforce each other.
A couple of years ago, NZTA developed a risk-based guide to temporary traffic management, expecting those who plan roadworks to identify and address the specific hazards around each worksite.
This was to move traffic managers away from rigid compliance, towards their professional judgment about what is practically needed, rather than following a 1450-clause rule book.
That is proving very challenging for contractors used to religiously following the rule book.
This might be against the wishes of road controlling authorities who are looking for better value for their roading money, and who want to trust the professional judgment of their roading managers.
We do need to recognise though, that the temporary traffic management system has largely worked for the workers who work these sites. Between 2019 and 2023, there were 42 fatal and 314 serious crashes at road work sites. Ninety-five per cent of those killed or injured were road users, not workers.
As well, in respect to state highways, 83% of the fatal crashes were because of inappropriate speed, and 58% were because of loss of control. Seventy per cent of these fatal crashes were when the sites were unattended. The drivers probably thought there was no hazard, just because there were no road workers present.
There is still work to be done to ensure our road worksites are sensibly safe for everyone. Meantime, though, if you find yourself fuming at road works and abusing road workers who are just doing their job, you are just adding to the problem.