I was hoping not to have another run of funerals like the one I had last year. The start of the year is not lending me any confidence on that score.
It’s more than a little aggravating that this has been known about for a while.
It’s even more aggravating to think that for the a cost that will likely be a fraction of the cost of saving this one crash victim we could avoid the problem all together.
Now, I’m going to pull some numbers out of my arse, to a certain extent. I haven’t noodled around ACC or hospital data in any real way, so these are very off-the-cuff numbers, indeed, more indicative than anything else.
I’ve been told by people that fix broken people that a simple broken bone—simpler than my arm—costs the health system a good ten grand or so to fix; that’s the cost of medical salaries, ambulances, materials, physio, and so on. That’s for a simple case. More complex cases tend to cost more—my own arm would have been at least two to three times that (4 months in plaster, 9 months all up, including 5 months of therapy). That cost for my arm didn’t require surgical intervention—for a shattered pelvis, leg, and whatnot, we’re into the realms of very expensive orthopaedic surgeons, theatre staff, and anaesthetist, plus potentially significant amounts of highly skilled rehab work; a cost could easily escalate from tens of thousands into the realms of six figure sums.
That doesn’t cover the ACC cost for anyone out of a job for any length of time, or sickness benefit for someone who’s long term disabled. The former can run up to $60,000 pa (the amount it’s capped at); the latter runs to a rather more modest $15,000 pa, plus any accommodation costs, and any costs of ongoing healthcare. If you end up spending twenty years on a sickness benefit because you’re too badly injured to work, that’s a nice, fat $300,000, minimum, as a cost.
Before going any further, I should note that I’m not speculating on these costs because I begrudge them; quite the contrary, I’m very pleased to live in a country where we take at least some minimal care of one another, and I can only describe myself as bemused by the sorts of things I see out of the States, to provide a handy counter-example.
No, what incenses me is that this was a very avoidable situation: all it would require to have prevented this are a couple of robust gates. Now, I know civil engineering projects can cost a bit more than slapping something together in your back yard, but what do you reckon it would cost to put together a pair of metal gates that are closed by the last bus to run through every night. Ten grand? Twenty? Fifty, at the outside? If it had avoided this situation it would not only avoid a personal tragedy for EJ and his friends and family, but it would have paid for itself several times over.
A little money spent, a lot saved, and a bunch of heartache avoided. There’s no good reason not to.
Another point I’d make is what I loathe about proposals for CCTV cameras in the name of security and safety. Yes, it’s great if there are cameras that help identify offenders. But cameras aren’t going to fix the injury here; they are not a mechanism for crime prevention, in the way that, say, beat police officers are.
Oh, and to head off the inevitable smart-arse response: yes, by not walking down a non-pedestrian tunnel you are less likely to get run over. This is also true if drivers don’t belt through one illegally and manage to not notice a person walking through it, too[1], and if the ones who do hit you don’t leave you to die. If you wish to engineer for how the world ought to function then please, by all means, start in your own back yard; people ought to respect your home and possessions, so feel free to leave your doors and windows open when you leave the house.
[1] The lack of noticing such a thing leaves me with little confidence that the driver in question would notice equally obvious road hazards like, say, people using a pedestrian crossing.
