John MacDonald: Health and Safety is off the rails

You'll have your own way of describing this crazy situation where we’ve got KiwiRail telling the Christchurch City Council that it has to close a 1.5 kilometre stretch of cycleway for two years, because the cycleway needs some safety improvements. KiwiRail reckons the Heathcote Express cycleway, which is near a railway crossing, is so dangerous that a death or serious injury could happen there once every 1,000 years. Yep, once every 1,000 years. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that any death or injury —no matter how infrequent— is acceptable in any way. And KiwiRail says the section of railway that the cycleway crosses is the busiest section of the South Island rail network, with about 35 trains using it each day. The cycleway opened less than a year ago and the locals seem to love it.  In fact, some local school kids turned up at the city council this week to tell councillors how important it is and how worried they are about this section of the cycleway being closed for two years while the safety upgrades are made to the railway crossing. Here’s an idea of why they’re so worried about not being able to use the cycleway for two years and being forced onto a road busy with trucks going to and from the port at Lyttelton. “We would need to bike on the highway. Port Hills Road is 60km. Lots of trucks, underpasses, and it’s scary and dodgy. It’s very dangerous crossing the Lyttleton offramp.” And you’ve got to say, the possibility of something bad happening once every 1,000 years surely has to put it at the lower end of things. And certainly not a priority. And this is the key thing here. I certainly don’t think it’s worth forcing cyclists off a safe cycleway for two years and onto a stretch of road that these school kids and other people who use the cycleway everyday say is a way more dangerous way for them to get to school and work. Now I’m not saying get rid of health and safety, because that old Kiwi “she’ll be right approach” is not something I’m in favour of.  But surely this type of crazy directive from KiwiRail shows how all the brilliant changes that have been made to keep people safer can be tarnished by another consequence of the health and safety laws. Whether it’s an unintended consequence, who knows, but the layperson’s term for this consequence is “backside covering”. That's all KiwiRail is doing here, because it knows that, whenever this once in 1,000 years death or injury might happen, it will be in the firing line. That’s the only conclusion you can come to. But that’s what health and safety has become. Backside covering. The other thing about this too is the safety upgrade being forced by KiwiRail is going to cost ratepayers $6.5 million. I remember the last time I was in a managerial job, and I had to make my team go to a health and safety briefing. And the so-called expert started banging on about a “cable strategy”. And I couldn’t help myself - because the old BS detector was going off left, right and centre. So I put my hand up and asked what this “cable strategy” was that they were going on about. Turns out it was a documented plan on how to handle things like computer cables and other cords, so that they didn’t create a risk of people falling over. That was the point when I realised that health and safety was becoming an industry. And that’s how I’m feeling about KiwiRail’s plan to force the Christchurch City Council this 1.5 kilometre section of the Heathcote Express cycleway for two years. It's also another example of how health and safety is out of control in this country.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.