According to official statistics, about 120,000 Kiwis start work before 6am, about 5 per cent of our workforce. This series examines the '4.31 Club' - the people who start the day so we can start ours. Today: Lee Rush, ATOC operator
Remember the truckie who drove the digger on the back of his truck into the Penrose bridge over the southern motorway recently and paralysed Auckland? Lee Rush saw it happen. Lee sees a lot of things happen.
Lee is an ATOC operator - ATOC being the Auckland Transport Operations Centre, a transport nerve centre which watches over we road users from Taupo to Bay of Plenty to Auckland and points north.
Lee and her colleagues are connected to more than 450 CCTV cameras on about 11,000km of state highways - the watchers who, at all hours, aim to keep the roads free and the people safe. On her 'day shift' 40-year-old Lee rises at 3.30am to make the commute from her Kumeu lifestyle block to work, where she pulls a 12-hour shift, finishing at 5.30pm.
ATOC's official purpose is to keep traffic flowing safely, manage road incidents and provide road users with timely traffic information.
Lee was on duty when the digger had its difference of opinion with the bridge. The resulting traffic snarl brought chaos to the motorway system for hours. Police are deciding whether any charges may result but Lee has a philosophical view, perhaps born of someone who has seen her fair share of misery over the ATOC cameras.
"Our priority in that instance is make sure no one else is in harm's way and then try and clear everything up as safely and quickly as possible."
When an incident like that - or, indeed, smaller ones -occur, Lee and her colleagues monitor the action, dispatch emergency services and traffic contractors and activate information systems.
But that's the process side of things. Lee and her colleagues witness a lot of human tragedy on the roads: "We see high speed collisions, people breaking down on the side of the road - which can be a really scary situation - and the results of things going wrong on the roads all the time.
"It doesn't faze me at all; I used to be a St John Ambulance officer and a big part of my role is to get help to people who really need it as fast as possible. Someone who hadn't been with St John's might not view it quite the same way - but it makes me feel incredibly empowered to be able to help.
"We see some good stuff too - I often see a serious incident where what I see on camera makes me think it's going to be a poor outcome. But I am sometimes pleasantly surprised by what air bags can achieve and by incidents which look terrible but the people involved walk away with just a scratch - that's a win for everyone."
Her view of Auckland traffic is surprisingly sanguine for someone who arrived from Wellington 19 years ago (although she lived on the Kapiti coast and had to endure what is an infamously slow drive into town there).
"I think adding an extra half hour onto every drive you take across town is really good advice," she says. "The biggest thing people need to understand about living in Auckland is that traffic will interfere with your life at some stage. But if that's all they have to complain about, they've got it pretty good, really."
Lee herself doesn't travel in peak hours or even on weekdays sometimes. Her shifts are two days and two nights, worked consecutively, each of 12 hours, followed by four days off. It would be a punishing schedule for some but she loves it.
"I love living in Auckland, there's so much to enjoy here. Shift work gives me the freedom I need - I couldn't work Monday to Friday. It gives me the work-life balance I need."
She and her partner are renovating their house, they look after dogs and cats and other animals on their 10-acre block, they enjoy a good social life, hiking and going to the movies.
So the next time you are on the road, know that Lee and her colleagues are watching, the eyes and ears of the transport system; not so much Big Brother as Big Sister.
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