Letter to the Editor, Tuesday April 26, 2016

Other liabilities

Further to my previous letter regarding the Mangonui boardwalk (Punishable offence, April 21). Mr Carter appears to be concerned about potential liability for the council if a fence is not erected, particularly in light of the new health and safety legislation.

I have already pointed out the boardwalk in itself is a significant safety measure. I would suggest that rational thought would now assess other risks, and in light of limited resources allocate priority where money would be most effectively spent, not where safety has already been obviously improved.

For Mangonui that has to be to extend the safety boardwalk along to the corner beyond businesses and to provide much-needed street lighting to our dark town.

When considering potential liability, he should consider the multiple substandard roads his council are responsible for.

Are they liable if they don't have protective barriers on the outside of every corner with a drop off? Are they liable for injuries caused by tightly winding, narrow gravel roads where there is not room for two cars (let alone buses and trucks) to pass on the very tight, blind corners and they collide, with injury or loss of life?

Are they liable if rough road surfaces cause a vehicle to go out of control and the driver is killed or injured?

Are they liable if an employee is driving home from or to work, or driving on council business, on any of these many substandard roads and is killed or injured?

Are they liable for every injury caused by substandard footpaths or by injury caused by the lack of a footpath that causes a pedestrian/vehicle accident? Are they liable if a child is washed down an unprotected storm water drain in a heavy rain event?

Are they liable if lack of street lighting causes an accident?

Every one of those scenarios has much greater risk, and therefore potential liability, than the imagined risk and liability if a fence is not put along the Mangonui safety boardwalk.

Is there liability to council in these events? Surely not; even the most asinine of legislators could not have that intent.

Consider the lack of action by the Auckland Council in the face of multiple deaths at a Waitakere waterfall (not that this is acceptable) and then tell me about liability.

Has he watched children standing on top of the guard rail on Taipa bridge and leaping off, as they have done for generations? Does he think they would not take advantage of the extra height provided by a fence to bomb off the Mangonui boardwalk? Of course they would. Will he position security guards 24/7 to prevent this?

Let's get real.

And please, Mr Carter put the money where it will give the best effect. Mangonui needs the extension to the boardwalk, and it desperately needs street lighting.

DANNY SIMMS
Mangonui