Police have yet to get the message. The gridlock suffered in Auckland last Saturday is simply unacceptable. An explanation from the police only confirms a suspicion that their accident investigation procedures give too little regard to the time people are forced to wait in blocked traffic. The accident on the harbour bridge on Saturday caused backlogs on motorways and approach roads that trapped people in cars for up to four hours.
Inspector Claire Humble says it took three hours to record the crash details. It could have been longer, she said, if police had not abbreviated their scene examination. The collision of a truck and two motorcyclists closed three lanes. One lane could have been reopened earlier, the inspector said, but officers decided it would be too dangerous to work alongside moving vehicles. For haste, they made do with marking and photographing the scene rather than surveying it with advanced mapping equipment. If that was an abbreviated inspection they need to do much better.
One hour seems an eternity to be trapped in traffic. Two is torture, three is unthinkable. One hour should be the maximum police allow themselves for the collection of forensic evidence. Beyond that time, the interests of the travelling public surely outweigh the interests of a possible prosecution.
Police, of course, are caught in the middle. If they reopen a road without collecting all possible evidence they are liable to face a judicial reprimand. Common sense often goes unrecognised by those with a single purpose. Common sense can receive little public recognition too. The beneficiaries are not aware of the congestion they have been spared. Public opinion is more likely to lament the failure to prosecute than give officers credit for quickly reopening the road. But police professionals should not allow their operational decisions to be dictated by public opinion or even judicial criticism. Officers in charge of an accident scene need to weigh up the sometimes conflicting public interests in criminal prosecution and traffic flow and decide which of them prevails in the circumstances. If they weighed up those interests last Saturday, they gave precedence to the wrong one.
When congestion on this scale occurs in Auckland, advocates of all sorts of transport schemes blame the limits of the road network. Even the New Zealand Transport Agency's state highway manager said the accident underlined the value of the western ring the agency is completing. But opportunism of that sort clouds the issue. Additional motorways, harbour bridges or public transport services cannot be justified by occasional emergencies. Regular demand makes them worth the expense.
