567 pages on road cones!

Isabelle Sin from the Ministry for Regulation writes:

For more than 20 years, temporary traffic management (TTM) in New Zealand has been guided by the Code of Practice for Temporary Traffic Management (COPTTM).

This 567-page tome lays out in painstaking (and painful) detail exactly how to use traffic cones, temporary speed limits, stop/gos, and other devices to manage risk and disruption on our roads.

Isn’t that astonishing? A 567 page handbook for temporary traffic management. I suspect once upon a time, it was guided by common sense.

Consider a construction company planning road maintenance. Suppose one approach costs the company $100,000 more than an alternative, but it would reduce the impact on local businesses by $150,000.

It would be better for society, but the company sees it as making the bid less competitive. The council chooses the cheapest option, and society suffers an avoidable $50,000 loss.

Yes they don’t take the external costs of businesses and motorists into account.