Imagine if you will… Yesterday 18 September 2008 we were driving to check the mail and do the banking at Westfield Helensvale on the Gold coast in Australia.
Incident occurred at 12.20pm
We drove down Smith St not a problem, stopped at the red light, when it was green we turned onto the side access road. Without warning this long dark haired guy from Atlus traffic control wanders across the road twirling & waving this sign whilst trying to have a drink.
Mind you as we couldn’t tell & we assumed no one else could see or tell what the sign was, which almost caused a 4 car pile up. To us it appeared the 3 drivers in front in typical Gold coast style were ignoring the controller. At this point the controller seemed to panic and started shouting abuse at anyone in ear shot.
we assumed the 3 cars in front sped off after the near accident to avoid being caught or involved. We were only able to get 2 of the 3 cars make & registrations numbers which were Hyundai PKS 67 and Daihatsu 560 GUI. This was due to the fact it appeared the cars were doing in excess of 80 kilometres an hour.
The whole potential nightmare could have been avoided by the fact of the lack of signage to which there was none warning of roadwork’s. Also a more thorough screening process of the applicants for the controller’s positions. We personally know the basics of the traffic controllers training as we have one in the family and also many Police.
The only time we saw this kind of thing happen with the Gold coast Police was in 1992 at the Southport bridge when about to go past a random breathe testing unit. The Police officer looked like he was swatting at flies. It turned out he was meaning for everyone to go into the queue to be tested. 1 guy misunderstood and he was chased a couple of metres and caught. Maybe these traffic control businesses need to get some power and lessons from the Police.
We hope that this post brings attention to the fact many businesses are causing more harm than good, in the lack of training or suitability for the jobs, such as Atlus traffic controllers.
If you have any experiences like the above we can be contacted through our email or Dan at Parkwood police station knows us.
