OPINION
Roadworkers have been shot at with a BB gun, verbally abused and left traumatised in Rotorua, Waka Kotahi New Zealand Transport Agency says.
It comes as the city grapples with “shocking” traffic delays stemming from a highway bridge closure, which locals say has resulted in five-minute drives taking up to an hour and turnover at one business halving.
Read the full story: Rotorua roadworkers shot at with BB gun, verbally abused during Utuhina Stream Bridge closure.
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I can understand the frustration of people about our endless and slow roadworks, but this behaviour is never okay. This Government, though, signalled to people that there are no consequences, as the perpetrators are most likely “sad, disadvantaged, discriminated against, poor victims and can’t be responsible to behave different”. The Posie Parker incident, for example, showed virtually no condemnation from the Government of people acting on their rage.
Potter O
Is this simply one more indicator of the country’s slow descent into barbarism and third-world status over the past six years?
Criminals and lawless thugs, a burgeoning sector of our once-civilised society, have been emboldened by misguided ‘soft on crime’ policies introduced under this regime.
How anyone could possibly vote for a continuation of this festering shambles and a Government that simply doesn’t care enough to fix the problems they themselves have created is beyond me.
Jonathan F
Firing a BB gun at and abusing road workers. These people are reckless idiots, incapable of logical thinking. Shame that they can’t/won’t be reading what 99 per cent of us think about them.
Steven W
We need crews that work night shifts seven days per week to get the work done. Orange cones and stop /go traffic control are expensive and unproductive. Get overseas crews if our lot won’t work.
Paul D
Won’t condone the BB gun, but if a five-minute journey is taking an hour or even half an hour, then I’d be hacked off. They close off the road a long way before the work area(s), which makes for a longer single-lane movement and hence slows the transition down unnecessarily. So, hence the frustration when you drive maybe 100 metres before the work site. Not saying that is happening in Rotorua, but it certainly does in Auckland.
Glenn P
What is happening to this country? What has happened to discipline, accepting responsibility for your own actions, respect for others...?
I guess when we decided to “spare the rod and spoil the child”, we may have started the rot.
Patrick F
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