Lightpole ON the road, death trap for motorbike?

[ByfordBlade]

In fairness to the City of Mandurah I think this one is another case of Western Power not being able to get their shit together and meet deadlines. Councils can't actually remove poles, lights, etc themselves as they are a WP asset.

We recently completed a development (in Mandurah funnily enough) where a condition was that overhead powerlines had to be removed and replaced with underground cables. We did the undergrounding and waited for WP to remove a pole which was right in the middle of a proposed new intersection - the day it was due to be removed I got a call advsing they were a bit behind schedule so will do the work in 6 weeks.

Fortunately the intersection did not need to be open to traffic, but the construction crew were only going to be there for another 3 weeks. We ended up getting them to build the road around it as if we didn't I'd be up for mob/demob costs to get them back plus without the intersection being built the development wouldn't get clearances and there's holding costs due to not being able to sell lots.

14 weeks later and the poles were removed so I paid a two man crew to drive down and drop a bit of roadbase and asphalt in the hole to finish the job. I remember the pre-privatisation days when WP were called a public "service", now they are your biggest liability on a construction job.

[rcradical]

Originally Posted by Dyno

What will they say if a biker hits this and dies?

They'll report the motorcyclist was speeding and ran into it.
Because as usual if there's a traffic incident involving a motorcycle, it's assumed to be their fault.

[chief wiggum]

here's one i prepared earlier....thomas rd, byford. since removed, after some prompting to shire councillors etc

[Juffy]

Originally Posted by rcradical

They'll report the motorcyclist was speeding and ran into it.
Because as usual if there's a traffic incident involving a motorcycle, it's assumed to be their fault.

Well you can't exactly say the pole collided with the bike, can you?

[rcradical]

Originally Posted by Juffy

Well you can't exactly say the pole collided with the bike, can you?

touche'