Mooove right along please

These signs are peculiar to Taranaki. I like them, they are quirky, and not as boring as the usual "Drive Safely" signs.
   There has been a lot of sealing work going on in the last week, which almost guarantees a bit of panel shop work. Loose chip is nearly as slippery as ice, yet traffic will ignore the 50k limit and pay the price.
   While sorting out a pile up in the weekend one lady passing through asked some of the crew about, "The Whiskery Guy, a nice man who helped me a few months ago when someone ran into me...."
   I remembered all right. A frantic motorist called in to the house I was living in at the time to get someone to call an ambulance.
When I heard it was a head on crash, knowing the corner, and involved a woman and baby, I feared the worst. I rang the emergency services, and went down in my truck which has a fleetlink R/T with my rather pathetic first aid kit. They were lucky, it was a substantial glancing blow. Both cars ended up in a soft clay bank. Safety belts and air bags had done their work. Bruises, shock and two totalled cars were the outcome, the baby in a restraint even slept through it all. I rang her parents and arranged for them to pick her up from the ambulance depot, and all was well.
   Three months before this crash, we installed 4.5 tonne concrete blocks around the corner to help contain slip debris. We didn't like putting them in, they looked very hard and final. It bugged me. We had a big " half way through the maintenance contract" meeting at which they stressed safety. They (The Bosses) said that if you pass by something that is unsafe and don't do anything about it then it is your problem too. I saw my chance. I stood up and told them we were building a death trap and the room went very quiet. Then, "Just the sort of feedback we are after Doddery" the Boss said.
A month later, at a cost of thousands of dollars we pulled them all out again. Hitting a slip is one thing, but a 4 and a half tonne concrete block takes no prisoners.


Rest Area 300m