Rudman's city: Clearing the roads has to come first after accidents

By BRIAN RUDMAN

A while ago, after one of those crashes that gridlock the Auckland motorway system for hours, I suggested the answer was one of those giant Russian helicopters, then all the rage for extracting logs down country.

It could swoop down and carry off the motorway-blocking vehicles with a minimum of fuss and delay.

For reasons best known to the powers that be, my brainwave was never taken up. But it is pleasing to see that an expert after my own heart has been brought in by Transit New Zealand to advise on crash clearance on our highways.

American accident guru John O'Laughlin is of the "steer it, clear it" school, a leading advocate of aggressive clearing of roadways after an accident. He sees it as a priority to avoid further accidents down the chain and to shorten the inconvenience experienced by other road users.

Underlining this philosophy is his first recommendation that "all response agencies ... should be trained to ensure that fully closing the roadway is the last option not the first".

Mr O'Laughlin, a former police fatal crash investigator in Seattle who now advises worldwide on highway incident management, spent two weeks last October studying after-crash procedures on our roads. His advice, in a preliminary report, is that if we acted smarter, road closures could be reduced and traffic got moving much more quickly.

In Auckland, for instance, he saw a motorway crash that took an hour to clear when he reckons it could have taken just 10 minutes. "There are a number of methods available to dramatically reduce the time and size of closures without reducing the quality of investigations being conducted."

As we all know, it sometimes takes an outsider to reveal the obvious. Take inter-agency communications during emergencies. In workshops with Mr O'Laughlin, the practitioners agreed it was poor, leading to delays and confusion.

Fire, police, ambulance and towing crews cannot talk to each other directly by radio. In Auckland, he says, the police frequencies are often jammed anyway. When the radios are working, emergency workers are forced to pass messages back and forth through their respective communications centres in a potentially dangerous game of Chinese whispers.

Mr O'Laughlin suggests a new highway accident radio channel as a solution, or - now why didn't anyone think of this before? - the use of cellphones.

Much of his report focuses on improved systems - better leadership, better training, better communications between agencies and a team approach at the scene. He also says that "the best investigators available should always be used to help new or less-experienced investigators on congested roadways".

It's a point he has hammered home before. In a 1999 report he tells highway authorities to "ask the police to send only their very best to investigations blocking major roadways. The Chicago Bulls wouldn't sit Michael Jordan on the bench in a critical game. The police should use the same approach.

"It is really frustrating and embarrassing to have investigators reading the directions to the total station [an investigation tool] in the middle of a blocked freeway."

Here and abroad, the biggest obstacle to the quick clearance of accident sites is the police need to collect evidence for possible legal proceedings. Mr O'Laughlin recommends the use of photogrammetry, which is a big word for the science of recreating, with the aid of computer software, accurate-scale 3D models of a crash scene using photographs taken on site.

Back in the office they can then measure the damage to cars, map skid marks and calculate distances with high accuracy. From this can be prepared animations to present as evidence in court.

The photographs could be taken while officers waited for other equipment to arrive at the crash site. Utah Highway Patrol officers using this technology now clear crashes in about one hour instead of three.

There were six-hour delays for travellers heading north from Auckland on Boxing Day after a fatal crash at Warkworth and similar delays four days later after a crash at Mangatawhiri on State Highway 2. And they were the big ones.

In the United States, one report suggests 60 per cent of highway congestion is caused by vehicles obstructing the road, like plaque clogging an artery. Every minute a wreck sits unattended can back traffic up for as much as six minutes.

Emboldened by John Banks' mayoral victory in Auckland, the road lobby has been upping the clamour to beat congestion by building more highways. Mr O'Laughlin is offering a cheap alternative - use the existing roads more efficiently. Here's hoping his message catches on.