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Roger Rabbits with |
This is about a pothole. A big pothole. More an excavation than a pothole, it could gobble a car rather than just wreck a rim and a $200 tyre.
And it’s about moaning. Terminal moaning. Both intensely annoying.
We have to travel down the road a bit to get to the pothole. So first moaning. We love a good grumble, a good gripe. Whenever we perceive a slight, a wrong, or things are out of control, we want others to know we’re hurting, share our misery, provide an emotional release. We moan.
Benjamin Franklin warned against moaning. “Any fool can criticise, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”
A pragmatic essayist and memoirist Maya Angelou said of complaining: “If you don’t like something, change it. And if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. Just don’t complain.”
Mangled parts
Now to the pothole, a figurative one, a big excavation or roadworks that will soon be a roundabout.
In this case, in the beginning, all the moaning was probably justified.
Because the intersection of Bureta Rd and Ngatai Rd, Accident Alley, had the unenviable record of being Tauranga’s number one, high risk, intersection. And we loved to complain about it.
As you waited for chicken chop suey at a nearly takeaway the sound of crashing woks would mingle with mangled automotive parts at the intersection.
And buying a Lotto ticket at the next-door dairy would probably bring the shrill of emergency service sirens rather than eternal wealth and happiness. A bit of literary licence.
Since 2019, there have been 19 reported crashes at this intersection – eight injury accidents and 11 due to failure to give way or stop. Reported dings that is – probably a lot more bent panels thatTower, AMI and AA got to hear about.
Why didn’t it become a visitor attraction for ghouls and risk-takers, with a billboard saying, “Dare you? Progress at your peril”.
The ‘F’ word
I wasn’t one of those statistics but easily could have been. On several occasions.
If you bought chop suey on a Sunday night, it might get home for dinner on Monday night while you waited for a break in the 13,000 vehicles that pass each way along Ngatai Rd each weekday.
I’ve wasted valuable days of what’s left of my life waiting at that intersection. Knuckles white with stress, gripping the steering wheel. Foot twitching impatiently over the accelerator. I have even surprised myself with expletives I never knew were in my lexicon.
Impatience often leads to hasty decisions and horrible outcomes. And it did.
I’d been working up a lather at Accident Alley one day, cars massing behind, frustration building. I seized a moment and barrelled across the bows of a ute coming up Ngatai Rd.
I swear I saw the colour of the driver’s eyes as he flashed by. I certainly saw him mouth me the ‘F’ word. I got the mandatory hostile blast of the horn and middle finger. In hindsight, the heat of my takeaway chop suey probably wasn’t worth dying over.
Of course I blamed everyone else. “Fix the damned intersection.” “We need traffic lights.” “Why isn’t someone doing something?” Needless and uninformed grouching.
Remember Maya’s advice? “Don’t complain.” Because something is being done. Just not traffic lights. We might have to change our thinking.
A signalised intersection, chocka with stop/start cars, would only cause peak hour congestion on Ngatai Rd, give us something else to moan about.
What we needed was a roundabout to maintain steady, smooth traffic flow. Now, we like steady smooth traffic. See – a change of thinking. Thank you Maya.
Fraught
While on roundabouts, England’s first roundabout in 1906, had an Accident Alley reputation. In those days vehicles on the roundabout had to yield to vehicles entering the roundabout. Precursor to a stockcar meeting – absolute chaos, snarls, big dings, broken car bodies and broken bodies. It took another 50 years to get things right.
Back on Ngatai Rd, we’re still complaining.
Apparently we don’t like the disruption and inconvenience that comes with progress.
Road closures, detours, 50km/h becoming 30km/h and vice versa, armies of hardhats in hi-vis, serious machines and trucks, temporary fencing and traffic cones which have enjoyed an unseemly birth spurt.
Making a major roundabout happen on a narrow corridor down an arterial road, I am sure, can be fraught.
Like the day peak-time city-bound traffic down Ngatai Rd backed up from the roadworks “damned near” all the way back to Levers Rd, according to a couple of accounts.
“Inconsiderate. Why can’t they think things through,” complained our terminal complainer. “It’s simple. Stop the roadworks for a couple of hours at peak hour both ends of the day. Free things up.”
Really? Wouldn’t that needlessly prolong the work and cost squillions?
It would be simpler to change our thinking perhaps. Ask not what the road gangs can do for you, but what you can do for them?
Why don’t commuters start work a couple of hours earlier, or later – take some pressure off the chokepoint. Or work from home?
Did you know that traffic roundabouts have been shown to reduce fatal and injury crashes by as much as 75%. And the chicken chop suey always gets home hot and on time.