A major contractor was operating roadworks labelled "dangerous" and "high risk" to road users the same month it was let off a prosecution over a cyclist's death.
Photo: Photo / 123RF
Downer failed safety audits on three days in April, on busy Ilam Road in Christchurch.
Earlier that month, health and safety charges were dropped against the company over the death of cyclist Fyfa Dawson at unsafe roadworks in 2019. This was after Downer gave an 'enforceable undertaking' to WorkSafe to spend about a million dollars on cycling safety initiatives.
Among the nine shortcomings found on Ilam Rd outside the University of Canterbury on 1,13 and 28 April, were obstructions in cycle lanes.
"The [first] audit was considered dangerous/high risk and therefore required work to cease immediately until critical issues were addressed," the council told RNZ.
The site, a water main renewal, was shut down for two hours on 1 April to fix the problems. Some then recurred.
The university had raised safety concerns for students and staff with the council and Downer, the university told RNZ.
An internal university health and safety memo said the 1 April audit had "failed miserably".
"All three audits showed problems that required the contractor to fix," the council told RNZ.
Downer had overall responsibility.
It said the main problem was students stealing scores of traffic management signs, and so it was, unusually, bringing in security.
Its subcontractor Nova Traffic Management told RNZ that mostly drunken students had stolen 92 signs over several weeks, or dropped them in the river.
"It's been an ongoing battle," Nova director Dave Wilder said.
"As late as last Friday we were chasing three of them down the road and each of them had a sign."
Downer and Nova said they had engaged with the university multiple times but it did not make a difference.
Downer said it had "confirmed the issues raised on the site audits and has worked with Nova resulting in improvements".
Wilder admitted there were other shortcomings - such as an underqualified person running traffic control, and adapting the traffic management plan - but they had rectified them, and he rejected that road users' safety was compromised.
"No, no it wasn't."
However, the council said otherwise - "road users' safety was affected" by failure to follow the agreed traffic safety plan.
A complaint in April said an alternative pedestrian crossing had poor visibility: "It is ad hoc and there is a risk of someone getting hurt."
The council charged Downer a fee for "substantially" breaching the plan and issued a written warning to Nova.
Downer said the most recent audit in late May found the site was good overall with only a few "minor items".
"As part of the contract works Downer manages Nova and other subcontractors through an independent prequalification process to ensure that companies engaged by Downer has [sic] appropriate structures in place to ensure compliance and safe processes, with Nova being assessed at 96 percent in a recent Sitewise review."
Fyfa Dawson's parents spoke up last month after Downer, along with McConnell Dowell Constructors, reached their deal with WorkSafe. They said the two companies' failure in 2019 "to ensure a safe traffic management plan around their worksite has had catastrophic consequences".
"The commitment by these companies to the enforceable undertaking is a step in the right direction to improve safety for cyclists," the whānau said.
The three audits in April this year at Ilam Rd found:
- Signs not maintained - dirty, gratified or damaged. Wilder said they sometimes put old signs up temporarily when new signs were stolen. "I bought 72 new ones just last week," he said.
- Signs missing, some due to theft
- Traffic lane tapering just 10m long instead of 30m
- A traffic management operative in charge, when it should be a specialist
- Signs missing to direct pedestrians to an alternative path
- Signs for cyclists missing, and some obstructions on cycle path and cycle lane on Clyde Rd
- Temporary speed limit too high
Downer said it was not normal practice to engage security, but it was going to do this at the water main job, which should be finished next month.
"This is extremely frustrating given the additional work burden it places on crews and the safety risk that it potentially poses for the public," it said.
"Council and the police have been made aware of the ongoing theft of safety equipment and we have engaged with the University of Canterbury on multiple occasions."
It was working with the industry and regulators to improve temporary traffic management overall, in particular by developing guidelines to protect vulnerable road users, Downer said.
Downer said on a typical workday it is managing traffic on 1000 sites.
Its system had captured 25,000 audits in the past year, with 95 percent showing effectiveness and 98 percent compliance, it said.
"Safety performance has generally improved over time."
Benchmarked against the industry "we are deemed to be on the high performing end of the spectrum", Downer said.
The company provided its own graph showing its injury rates per work hours running at one sixth the industry average.
Usually roadworks traffic management problems were dealt with at project level and only escalated up if there were injuries or "high potential risk to road users or workers".