Our costly road cone epidemic

Travelling around the country it’s been great to see so many road works under way before winter sets in, but consider the cost of all those big red road cones.

It used to be that just a couple of road cones was enough to immediately trigger awareness by motorists that road works were ahead and slow us down. Now they can stretch as far as the eye can see.

It turns out each of them costs an eye-watering $28 (excluding GST).

Multiply the thousands dotted around the country, most of them packed together cheek to jowl rather than spread out more costeffectively, and that’s a huge taxpayer investment.

Then consider how many of those cones stand idle with absolutely no work going on for days or weeks at a time when the non-essentials could be used elsewhere rather than buying more new ones to compound the national road cone epidemic.

Surely it’s time for an inquiry to find out how the epidemic has got out of hand, whether taxpayers are being well served, and whether more cost-effective rules on how many cones are really needed at each site should be brought in.

The way things are, the profligate use of cones can be seen as a licence to print money for somebody and it’s time to save taxpayers some money.

Yes safety is critical, but just how many cones does it take to tell us we’re entering a danger zone? CHRIS TURVER Waikanae Beach