Electra chief executive Geoff Douch said it is all about safety, for those doing the work and those passing by: from motorists to pedestrians. “Sometimes they need permission for the next stage of the job and the person granting that may not be there at that time.
“Until they get that permission or a sign off, they must wait and stand around. They cannot leave until the job is done. It is the law
“So: they have to wait ... standing around, or so it may seem to many, taking the time to get a coffee, or calling the boss. Electrical work is dangerous for all involved,” he said.
In a recent incident on Whyte Street in Foxton, on the corner of State Highway 1, his team had to replace a transformer. “To do that they first needed to stop the power from going into the transformer. A supervisor had to okay the next stage of the job, so they had to wait to get what they had done signed off.
“Because it was on the corner with a state highway the safety requirements are even stricter than they would be if it was just a suburban street.
“It is a legal requirement to have traffic management in place prior to the job starting, and the people who are in charge of management must stay there until the job is completed and our staff have left.
“In this case we had three or four staff on the ground doing the job required plus a few extra safety people to watch what was happening above their heads.
“We need to keep our people safe and ensure no lines come down on to the road, by accident. Hence some of them standing there, looking up much of the time. If they hit a problem they need to contact the network controller for further instructions.
“Safety instructions are becoming more and more stringent, not just for our workers, but also regarding road safety, affecting the general public, including residents and users of surrounding properties.
“NZTA do not mess around. Complying with their rules is very involved and are creating as much work as our own job and they check up on us to ensure we do it correctly.”
Traffic management was in the hands of Tatana Contracting and its project manager Chevy Tatana confirmed that traffic management for electrical work is a requirement by law.
He said all the cones and signs tend to irritate a lot of people and his staff get a lot of verbal abuse, especially those holding the stop/go paddles.
“We do this for safety reasons. For the workers and the road users.
“We have an exit plan in place at each site in case something happens to a worker or a member of the public.”
He said any fenced off area tends to compel some people to approach and even jump over it to take a closer look. So there are people around to prevent that from happening for everyone’s sake.
He said Horowhenua isn’t doing too badly in that regard, but in Wellington there is a move to traffic lights, rather than using people. “Those lights are set to last two minutes each way and then allow for three minutes to clear traffic going through. These are either remotely operated or on sensors.”
He said workers need to be on hand to guide people around a site in places, such as involving a pedestrian crossing. “We have to be ready for anything. A car can come zipping around the corner, straight into the site for example.
“In Wellington they now have 2m high fencing around sites as a lower fence means people will jump them. Or: they take them away.”
