 Good morning, everyone. It is wonderful to have you listening in to our webinar, School Zone versus Work Zone. What's the difference? This webinar is proudly brought to you by the National Road Safety Partnership Program, or NRSPP, in partnership with ARB Group and of course, the Downer Group. My name is Rosemary Patterson and I'll be your moderator today. I will co-moderate the session and provide tech support, so we just click through. Thank you, Jim. My esteemed colleague Jerome, who manages the NRSPP and its many activities, joins me in the studio as our primary moderator today. Thank you very much, Rosemary. Thank you, Jerome. For anyone joining us for the first time, could you tell us a little more about NRSPP and its purpose? Certainly. The NRSPP has been established to provide a collaborative network for Australian businesses and organisations to help them create a positive road safety culture, both internally and externally. It aims to help all organisations of all sizes across all sectors to share and build road safety initiatives specific to their own workplace and beyond. It's delivered by ARB and funded primarily by Government Coalition and ARB and I'm really looking forward to hearing from Jim today. This has actually been one webinar I've been lining up for a long time, so it's with a pleasure we can actually hear about Jim, the experienced Downer. Good morning. Good morning, Jim. Good morning, Rosemary. And we'd like to thank you, Jerome, for getting this happening and thanks to Jim. It's my absolute pleasure to welcome Jim to the studio today. Jim Appleby. Jim is currently National General Manager at Road Surfacing for Downer Infrastructure Services. Jim has strong expertise in the areas of strategic business management, team leadership and complex contract delivery in roads, highways and airfields. Jim joined Downer Infrastructure in 2011 with a vision of zero-harm workplace through embracing behavioural change. Jim has a passion for the Ashfield industry and its people. So over to you, Jim. Let's get started. Hi. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you today about one of things, a critical subject for road safety and particularly those that work on it. The presentation is titled, School Zone Versus Work Zone and What's the Difference? Really, I'm pausing a question to you, the audience regarding that. As you can see on the slide, we have two very similar situations, the School Zone and the Work Zone, both of which many people interact with on a regular basis. Both of which mums and dads employed and moving and working around an area. Managing traffic and managing the safety of people on foot around that. Both require drivers to observe limits and respect the work they're doing in order to do its safety and allow the sites and the public to function around that. One's controlled by crossing a system or as I would term a lollipop, lady or gentleman, and the other's controlled by a traffic controller. The reality is to me, there is no difference, but there are some startlingly different facts when you dig under the surface. I want to focus very much on our work zones because of the data we've collected in the master over the last few years. Just to point out between January 2012 and July 2016, we've recorded 3,665 near misses of members of the public doing the wrong thing as they travel through our work sites. Now every night we have up to 2,000 people on the network facing some quite serious dangers, many which we aren't directly in control of and the public play their part in. This data is profound about the dangers we face and which is why we wanted to compare it to a school zone where I think you'd see the levels are vastly different because of how the public perceive the work that's going on. How different is that? Why would that be? I think and rightfully so, the crossing assistant is held in very, very high esteem in the community. They're protecting our future generations, our children, and I think a 40 zone is, you know, people are compelled so their moral obligation to obey the speed limit and you know the crossing assistant is there doing some dutiful work for our future generation. I think that's the view of the public. I think in terms of the road works we consider the nuisance. The training of those two people. What differences is there? Is it much between a lollipop and a controller? Almost identical. The service the offer is almost identical. It's keeping the public and the traffic and pedestrians safe around their work zones outside of a school or on a road. So almost identical activity. And we've got an interesting comment from John. Do you want to read that, Geronimo? Certainly. Surely the difference is that the police enforce legislated rules. They don't enforce a nice to have. I think that could be a valid point, John, and maybe someone will explore as we move through the next few slides of the presentation. So what we see in our work sites is, you know, the 3665 we broke down into three areas. So these are reported by people from our work sites. And as you can see, we've got 44% or 1,600 just over people break in traffic rules or just careless driving. Nearly 900 occurrences of speeding. And as we all know, speed kills above 40 kilometers an hour. You're literally in the lap of the gods as to whether you survive on impact or not. And really worrying is the 32% of verbal and physical abuse. And I mean physical abuse also. So nearly 1200 cases where the public have felt the need to interact with us when actually we're trying to do our jobs. The worry is that that's gone up dramatically. We're seeing more and more of this abuse coming back to us, which tells me fundamentally there's something not right. Is there specific areas? Is it happening more in regional? Is it happening more in certain states? Or is it happening more in cities? Or where is this sort of aggression coming from? When you look at the data and break it down and remember we use data for this, this isn't guesswork. We see the metro areas, so the big cities, the main conurbations where it's dramatically higher in the regional. I've got to be honest, the regional data shows actually that the drivers and the interaction with the public is much better and inherently our guys feel much safer, even on the highest speed route. And that abuse factor is profound. Interesting. Actually we've got a question through here from Don. Has any research been done on how many incidents of care at school crossings under supervision of a SCS? I haven't got access to that data, but what I did do is do a bit of Google mining just to see what I could pick up. I couldn't find many incidents at all. I could find one reference in the career mail last year about, I'd seen 70 acts of speeding through the schools and that was picked up data. So from what I've seen and the data I combine, it is far safer than it is on a roadward site. I'm just going to give you a few seconds just to have a look at maybe one or two examples of the words spoken by people who call our near-missing, and this is their words, not our interpretation, to give you some understanding of the abuse and the situations they face in their words rather than ours. So I'll just give you a few seconds. Just while our audience are reading those through, which one sticks out for you? There's multiple ones. There's ones here when I think people don't realize how abuse affects people. Like abuse the TC and had a female TC almost in tears. Another one when they're actually getting things thrown at them. So what are these sort of things being thrown at? And then what do you do to deal with some of these people and the abuse they have to put up with on the roads? How do you find that as the manager of them all? You know, we have a legal and moral obligation to our staff to keep them safe. We try and do things around their well-being and promote things like conflict resolution, but as a car comes past, he's gone. I can tell you first hand, I was hit by a bottle once on the M4 in Sydney. And this is the sort of things we face. And this is just their words. We take it really seriously, which is why we're here today, to try and enlist some help towards making it a little bit of a better experience for those doing the jobs. And what's the sort of make up of the workforce that's out there? You're a work guys rather. Yeah, interestingly, our traffic control, as I'd say, around about 60, 40 percent, 60 men, 40 ladies. So it's actually a really balanced workforce. We find female traffic controls particularly a superb at diffusing situations. You know, they really are much more in tune with that. And we look for a balanced workforce here. Awesome. We've had two questions said, Geron. Would you like? Well, one of the ones we've got here, we can sort of hold through, because I know Jim will be answering that in a moment, about where the data's come from and how you pull that together. So that's what you look forward to very soon. Yeah. Great. Okay. Well, thank you for the questions. Keep them coming in. We'll ask them along the way. And this is one of the main questions. So the experiences I've just told you about on the roadward side, if it was a school zone, what would happen? And I've just put down there five points that I think would come into action very, very quickly. Double demerits. If you want to speed through a roadward school zone, you're going to face a penalty. There will be press interest. You know, I found one article in the Courier Mail recently. However, if this level of information was being sought from crossing assistance, the press would be all over it. There would be public outcry. I can assure you, if it was going through the school zone of my little girls, there would be a public outcry. There will be political involvement. Politicians will be enlisted to drive change. And we would think it would be immediate action with this level of data that we've picked up if this was a school zone. So I actually think the school zone and the work zone are out to kill it when it's doing exactly the same job. And for those of you out there, we received an interesting, we had the list from Jim of some of the things his staff has put up. And Evan's raise really going here saying, in Queensland, there was even a traffic control who was shot at last year. It's not with Downer, but another traffic controller nonetheless. Yeah, it's terrifying. It's a terrifying thought. And, you know, we need to drive a behavior or change to make it more palatable. So for you, how do you pull? I guess we'll be touching this very soon. And further, thinking about how do you supply your staff with a safe workplace? We started elimination, as you should, in eliminating risks. So we would prefer a road closure, wherever possible, to limit the amount of interaction we have to have with the public. But we also take our obligations really seriously, you know, conflict resolution, better planning to make it easier for the public to navigate our works, trying to take away some of those frustrations that we can inflict upon ourselves occasionally. I'm working with the likes of TMZ, and Sydney, who are very methodical about how they allow works to happen on the network to try and reduce the effect that that road works causes. There can be congestion quite obviously for closing roads and closing lanes. So in a much more organized fashion. But you know, the challenges will always be there. And, you know, it's really interesting. To me, we spend our life fixing what every motorist breaks. All we're doing is repairing the damage that the cars and the trucks and all of the vehicles do to the network. And we get abused for it. Now, in my eyes, if we stop doing that, if this industry said no more, we're done. It will be very quick to see how public opinion would change and drive it when the roads weren't possible. Can't get work, the economic infrastructure the country's affected. You know, this is a serious subject, you know, and that's all we're doing. We aren't out there just for the good of our health. We out there repairing the network. That's what we're employed to do by the public. And, you know, we have to face parole for that. And lots of drivers won't get me wrong. We interface with huge amounts of the public. And the public sentiment is always reasonable with the majority. However, you know, there are people out there who who clearly see us as a as an issue when we're just trying to fix what the very car breaks perception. Got weather and everything as well to battle. We have multiple conditions, you know, we zero arms at the heart of our business. And I know, if I was speaking on behalf of any of our competitors, they're no different. And, you know, we have to we have to worry on multiple fronts and manage our risks on multiple fronts. So every bit of help we get can only be assistance. And looking at some of the feedback coming through as well, it appears even some of the school zones aren't alone. Like I went through David High lighting how my wife is a crossing supervisor. She's given up reporting drive throughs they never get acted on. So any more education on drivers understanding the laws applicable to work zones and children's crossings. We have to create that link to people, you know, your car will in an argument between a car and a human being. I've never seen one report of a human being winning. And I genuinely believe we don't have to accept. This is a status quo. We were better than this in this society. We're in a wonderful country. We have a wonderful life and we should accept better just to give one of the questions earlier was about where the data comes from. So we use a near misline to identify it. So just going to give you a brief overview as to how that works. So a near miss is a report and has a really complicated definition, which is there on the screen. I'm not going to try and read it because I get lost halfway down. But in essence, if the box falls on the chap's head, that's an incident. If it falls anywhere near way thinks it's unsafe. That is a near miss. So what we're trying to promote is people report and things that nearly happen. And it's based on a theory from a guy called Frank Bird, who came up with birds triangle. He went across industry looked at two and a half million incidents. And came up with the following synopsis really. And what he said is that for every fatality you've had, there will have been 10 times there's been a serious injury in that category. He said there's also 30 times there will have been a minor injury in that category. But really interestingly, what he also said is that of over 600 times, there will have been a near miss. Now, a lot of people look at the triangle says, so if you get to 600 more near misses, somebody dies. The important word is over. So there will have been at least 600 times it nearly happened. So we use birds triangle to try and create some data. And we use this as our philosophy to down any missing on give us a little plug that we call it mate. That was bloody close. And the bloody was slightly different word at the start, but I got overruled. It's built on the values of Australian mateship. And it's been over four years. It's a very simple theory for our guys and girls to understand you ring a telephone number, you leave a message. At that point, we deal with the whole data stream, the trend analysis, the feedback to people who've called. So it's really simple. And that's why we think our teams like it. It's not a big burden to make it work. And the picture at the sides begins field mind disaster. And we put that up as a great example of Australian mateship. But as we've got into this, the reality is, the mind disaster could may possibly have been avoided had the near miss reporting have been better. So it's a double-edged sword now. Interesting. And that's the report. So you may think, oh, that doesn't sound too many. I would hazard a guess. And certainly on talking to other people from the construction industry, the level of reporting within the downer roads businesses is mammoth. So to give you an example, most companies would tell you 100 reports a month is exceptional. We're getting nearly 1000 reports a month at the moment. So the culture of reporting is really good on a full range of near misses, not just about the public, but about some of the things we get wrong as well. And so we got 17 and a half thousand data points to actually do trend analysis. But is that a bad thing that there's so many reports coming in it? Does that mean things are going bad or what does that mean? Until you understand the depth of the issues, you'll never understand the real problems and how to solve them. Some people would say, you know, you've got that many near miss reports. You must be really unsafe. If you look statistically, our lag indicators, our LTIs and MTIs are extremely low. We are well ahead of what the mining industry would operate at, who are considered the benchmark. So our lag indicators support that our safety performance is really good. I actually think this is realistic of what's really going on in the world. I think, you know, it is a dangerous environment and not having a line of sight, you know, ignorance is not bliss. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it's not happening. I encourage anybody to open into near miss reporting to get a real understanding of where the challenges are that they face. As I've said, it gives us lots of data and we can look at data in many, many different ways. So we can look at by state, location, business unit, by time of the day, by the person reporting if they wish to leave the name, and all manner of different approaches. And I put this slide up with some shame to be honest, but data is a source of all truth. The conference last year in Sydney, I presented and I suggested using the data we had, understanding where we are, how many traffic controllers we have, how many traffic controllers we believe are in Australia. I predicted within 28 days there'd be a serious incident involving a traffic controller in Australia. And I'm really sad to report that. I was wrong by one day. I'm really sad to report that it happened at all, but a TC in Queensland, not in the downer business I'm out, was tragically killed by a member of the public. So data being the source of all truth is important. I can remember getting the email from you when you said, look, sadly this has happened. Yeah. And at that conference I told people we had 28 days to change our ways and change our business. And yeah, it's a constant challenge. You know, we have to see it for what it is and do things about it. What we use birds trying for is to think differently. And this is at the heart of Nea Miss Rayleigh, is we don't think it's just one triangle. We think Frank was slightly wrong. I don't know if Frank's still around to tell that, but that's just our interpretation. Because Nea Miss has built on this. So we think the more Nea Miss steady you're getting, the more people are reporting, the more opportunity you have to stop the incident. So the blue is the nothing's happened, nobody's been hurt. Everything above the blue is somebody is being hurt or something has been damaged. So the more you understand, the more chances you have to reduce that. And that's reflected in our safety performance as well. So it seems to bear fruit. We're comfortable with the approach we have. And when someone makes an identify as a Nea Miss, do they provide a solution or do they have the opportunity to do that as well? It's really interesting. We watch this change over time, where rather than now just report, many people are telling you what's happened and what they've done to fix it. So we think the Nea Miss reporting line as well as several other initiatives we've done has started to change the DNA of our people. To become proactive rather than pass on a responsibility to everybody else to solve it. Which is gratifying when you read it. People are thinking differently and that's where we wanted to go. We're working on several things. You know, all the problems don't sit with the public. Trust me, we have many of our own. We're more than aware of that. Around traffic movement particularly and public interface, we put certain exclusion zones into play. You know, we spent a lot of money this year making sure we rolled out a really simple rule, which has gone down really well in our business. We've used GoPro surveillance, put my GoPro on the front of a traffic controller so we can actually see what they see. And I kid you not, sometimes it's terrifying watching a 55 tonne B-double career down the road at 100 kilometers an hour then move over the very last minute. You know, this is why this is a serious subject. You know, this is the sort of thing that goes on. Do you think the traffic controls crossing their fingers a few times behind their back, hoping for the best? We try and institute some really formal rules around you are never to be in the line of fire. You always to stand to the side. You know, that's just asking for trouble. You know, a moment relapse in one person could cause profound issues. So always be prepared. We always light our traffic controls so they're well seen. So we have some procedures as to most companies and many traffic control companies around that sort of thing. Conflict as an ocean trainer is really important. Effective worksite management. What's a red zone? So the red zone is, it's our Norgore area on our own site. So we have exclusion zones and rather than use words like exclusion, which sound incredibly silly in an accent like mine, we call it the red zone. And our red zone is 10 meters behind or 10 meters in front of a vehicle for the full width of the vehicle and you're not allowed to enter at full stop. How do you arrive at 10 meters? We actually engaged our workforce. We call them the biggest dozen. 13 practitioners, not managers, not people who sit and read emails all day, but people out in the field who have to work with rules to make them effective to come up with that rule and that's the rule they came up with. We're really happy about we have an engagement model for change and so it's driven by operatives from the field for the field. There's a whole list of other things we've done there, banning mobile phones which I think is important. Checking our signage. Lots of people who drive through when you get the feedback get very frustrated that our signage is not good enough and if they go from one of our worksites to a different worksite the signage changes so we double check and we audit our signage quality to make sure we're given members of the public as much opportunity to get the information as possible. Just for drawing on that I've got a really interesting question here from Karen and she sort of made the point that there's a worksite she was going through there's 40 k's now and drivers are regularly travelling through at 60 k's. This is mentioned to the council they put a speed display trailer out the radar facility as well and immediately drivers slowed down. So the question is looking at this sort of research conducted around the signage worksites. Yes we've done both covert speed and using the board Karen mentions to advertise and check speed and it does make a difference. What we have found however it makes a difference when they go past the sign for the length of the sign and then they speed back up. So people will react to the sign and slow down almost like a school zone but once or through the sign we've seen many cases of it speeded up so we have a traffic management division in Queensland a guy called Andrew Clements who's done some fabulous trials with various methods of trying to understand human behavior. You'll see a little bit of that when we talk about the emotive link. So yes we have yes it does have a positive impact but the impact wears off if people realize there is no penalty with it. Over time it sort of diminishes as well do you think? Absolutely right we've seen that if we're on works for multiple days and the signs there it has an impact on night one greater than night two and greater than night three. Just want to finish up with the back to blue you know we're an organization who pride ourselves on understanding our work teams and the troubles they face and all managers in down the roads go back to work in the crew for a week a year without you know everybody has to do it and it's been an enlightening experience for all managers to help us hone where we need to focus on our safety. So have you gone through that yourself? Yeah I did it on the spray ceiling crew in the Pilbara 43 degrees every day but you know it's good enough for the ghosts it's good enough for the gander it was actually a really enlightening experience I also did a week in Sydney and the difference in driver behavior is incredible so you're looking at these huge road trains moving up and down I couldn't remember the name of the freeway I'm sorry in the regional areas and they work with the traffic controllers so they know the road works run they'll slow down you know sometimes I'll have the road should for several minutes or park up or wait with a deal of patience the professional drivers that circumnavigate Australia are extraordinary and actually help rather than hinder in Sydney it was like a battleground you know it was one guy stood on the bonnet of his car so he could throw abuse from a slightly higher level than if he just been doing it out the window whilst waiting for us to reopen the road so I know that's very broad span to give you the two examples but I do believe the regional the regional routes we get far more help than we do in the metro areas extreme example say rules are great but what we're finding more than anything now is that is that people are desensitized almost because of what you see on TV you know if you look at the cigarette packet now if you smoke cigarettes and shows you a picture of somebody in a terrible state we think there's been a lot of desensitized to people about shock horror tactics it's no good me showing people pictures of traffic controllers have been more down we've done a little bit of research and I've got to be honest we stole some good ideas out of the TAC and I'll say that and with me and they caught with some fabulous stuff because we're very much focused on the emotive link to the public now we're trying to create the understanding that the people on the roads are actually people and you might well know if you think there's only 22 million people in in Australia I would hazard against everybody knows a traffic controller everybody if you think what is it seven steps of separation doing Kevin Bacon yep yeah Kevin Mac and you know everybody you'll know one and we're trying to create that link that for all you know this could be your friend well the links are even smaller now 4.2 apparently if you have Facebook so again we've done some trials out of our Queensland business under Andrew Clements and Evan Boone so need any information I'm happy for anybody to get in contact with the guys up there here's a couple of examples so using VMS to highlight that these are parents these are real people you know when somebody gets hurt on a work site you would be amazed at how many people it touches you know I've had one death in my time story that's being well regaled and some of the audience have heard it and he was my first boss and Colin died but the the effect was huge I would hazard touch 10,000 people directly or indirectly because of families associations friends and you know we try to create that link but these are people these are real people these are potentially your friends so you know give them a hand so the rights the sign and a fabulous idea we actually put a cut out and this was the approval of TMR who were happy for us to do this trial of the dad with the two children as a cut out on the site and Andrew's monitor driver behavior around that I'm just still waiting for the results to see if it's changed but it's all about this emotional link thinking there is a cause and there is an outcome related with my my actions try to make a lot more personal. Do you think some people disconnect the people on the work sites too are they maybe sort of viewed as equipment possibly or they just don't view them as well actually this is their work so this is their their workplace I mean to be perfectly honest there's a fabulous advert I saw some time ago I think it's actually out the UK where it shows a car driving through a school classroom and through a surgeon's theater and ask the question would you do that why would you go through somebody else's work so on any differently I think we're just seen as a nuisance I don't think people can connect with the value we actually bring and I'm sure we're playing our part in that we're really interested for some feedback but you know we're not seen as adding value when actually we keep in the essential network of Australia operation seen as an inconvenience. Well there's a question here from Paul that says and makes a comment this is the fact that drivers are not educated about science do you think that's a factor that's a really good question the answer is I don't know I think I think we can become almost overwhelmed by the amount of science advertising around these days I know Boris Johnson the mayor of London took almost half of the road signs down because he believed there was too much information it's not about what they see and it's about how they behave and when they get that that's what I would say would you know the driver behavior irrespective of the sign isn't changing as they go through the road works and I don't know how much the sign would drive change and that would certainly help good signage always does it prepares people and what we're seeing is government start to give people better expectations that your journey will be disrupted and it'll be disrupted by x amount of time interestingly to slow down and drive through a 40 kilometer an hour work zone which is about I don't know say it's a kilometer long a cost about 20 seconds of your life that's all and what would you say also because like one of the common issues that pops up and people go oh look there's a worksite out no one's on it where are they yeah I think I think we we are masters of our own downfall in some situations the problem with a lot of road repairs is they move move horizontally very quickly so you've got to give them enough work and enough space to keep it moving and you can't reset the start point so you can't take it off put it on and keep that work moving you know we we we have to provide an efficient delivery to the network so the may well be gaps we we also have seen examples from around the industry where we haven't exactly got it right that's not us taking the moral high ground we have we have issues to resolve all wrong as well but I've got to be honest I don't think there is often as people tend to remember interesting comment there the higher the income the worst the attitude talking about the areas that some people travel through are better for workers we've tried to do some geographical checks to see if there are any hot spots and that we don't believe it's based on society we best believe on the network or some so I would say the M4 is a classic example of a real hot spot because people face trials and tribulations every day we did we did some work for some tunnels in Sydney and the client we work for there coming called transurban were fabulous you know they got us some assistance when we knew we were going into a particularly difficult area and they actually got place presence on the night the place where they actually arrested somebody for dangerous driving because he swerved at a traffic control wow you know what and he did it to impress his girlfriend that's what he told the placement she was particularly impressed when she had to get the bus home because he impounded his car so what are the place thing when they actually have to sit on the side and actually provide today sort of are they aware of the risk that you guys and what you guys have to put up with yeah queens on particularly actually in many examples make a part of the contract to have a placement there and we do see some positive impacts from where the police are but again people's behavior changes when the out of sight out of mind but yeah there has been some positive impact but not there's a cost impulse to society for having a policeman sat to make sure you go to do 40 kilometers no imagine imagine if we had to put a policeman every skills or at that point society is really broken down I'd rather a policeman was out there keeping us all safe from dangerous people not a traffic controller with a lollipop stick exactly exactly we also being the emotive link and I just want you to mention and give you the opportunity Mary if you'd like to have a look at this foundation so the Georgina Josephine Foundation we've aligned with these guys because you know I won't tell you that don't have a look at the website about about Peter the father whose daughter tragically died under the wheels of his own youth and their story is incredibly similar to ours about safety of people safety of pedestrian safety of people on foot around vehicles and these are our charity partner this year their story is amazing two of the most amazing people I've ever met Emma and Peter who who sort of dedicated their life after the death of their two-year-old daughter to try to keep people safe and my message about road works is really important to me I would ask everybody to go and share the dangers around your house your driveway your neighbor's driveway with the people who you're around 17 children have died under the wheels of a vehicle in this situation on average per year that is that is a horrifying statistic something needs to change so we're trying to work with this guy's to to promote the work they're doing and to promote the message to try and keep our children safe most of the time it's it's a relative as well do you think there's also resonates with that that problem group as well I guess the 18 to 24 young male is this a pathway into their psyche to say look this is a high-risk environment the road network this is what can happen anything that gets into the psyche I've got to be honest we immediately jump to the fact that many of the people and I think it's a common misconception many of the people who are abusive at road works are young drivers on pay plates I don't think that's a case talk into our teams it's across society in fact the pay players feel probably a little bit more vulnerable because if they break the rules the penalties to them are greater now if they're caught speeding from what I understand if they've got any alcohol in their blood when the driver and you know when you're on your plates the rules are tighter I can tell you you know there's been it doesn't have a it doesn't have an income basis it doesn't have a creed a color a religion basis it's right the way through society and you know to have a traffic controller ran over on purpose by a woman whose daughter was late for a gym corner for example in her words not mine it just touches every part of society it's about I think it's about how you are and who you are and where you place your values it's quite deep I guess that aligns with them so if like Australia released a report a week or two ago and I was looking at some trend lines and serious injuries and over the last decade has been a doubling in person to person serious injuries so it's sort of aligned to what you're saying and there's one more run from money here as well and do you think people get conditioned when signs are left up and work is not occurring yeah that's a really good point and yes I could see why that would be a frustration because it's unnecessary and quite rightly as Lonnie said I think David also pointed out we we really need to up our game and become more responsive to the public needs as well so I'm not saying this is a one-way trend we've got all play our part and how do you think like the smaller operators like Dave sort of has that question the smaller I phrase that cover or remove the science I guess is a common sort of thing coming through yeah you've got to be careful there are some standards we have to follow you have to leave certain signage in place so there might be no work going on but yeah depending on the condition of the road or the work being undertaken or the potential drop offs at the edge you might have to leave signage up and that signage might have to slow you down for public safety maybe we don't transmit the message about why it's being left out sometimes so there is an element of that but there is an element of where we've got to install better practice I'd agree but you're doing not to listening Jim I'm doing a lot of talk in the day though Rosemary I'll just a couple of examples of the good work that's going on so this is a sign that I use by Vic wrote create the link between the grandad the granddaughters and he could well be the one on the work site so the whole industry is having a push at this and that's why we need public help unfortunately these two videos don't work but I would really suggest you have a look at them and when you talk about the emotive link this is this is it in creation NT government have sponsored by the traffic management community or traffic control community a video to be made and they say it won't play today sadly but it's linked in the fact that this is somebody's relatives who are doing this work and the NT government have been great I I saw this on during the Olympic coverage at seven o'clock primetime TV this advert was on TV and to me it you know it's fabulous to see government picking up the mantle and doing some of the heavy lifting around this is this really the first time any governments we saw the billboard but is this the first real major advertising approach and sort of Karen asked a really good question actually asking around campaign so is what we're feeding to right now yeah so I think I've seen a few examples that there's a one from TSC which I just think was a game changer I think it's a brilliant brilliant advert but the campaign is out there and I think government are aware we use data like WeClec and other companies to show them the risks and government are reacting you know government reacting public changing is our perfect world and this advert so this is a guy called Francesco this is a TSC advert anybody in Victoria may well have seen it it's possibly the best advert I've seen in many many years to make you think differently this guy is not an actor and when the 70 people walk around the corner watch the change in him and then put yourself in that position and I think it opened my eyes that the way to get public to change isn't to sit there and bash them over their head with a big stick and have double demerits it's about creating this emotive link to an outcome where if something goes wrong it could affect them because the question put to Francesco was how many people do you think should die on Victorian roads every year and number he chose was 70 and so then around the corner walked 70 of his family members and sitting in the audience when we when it was launched for the first time and I must say there's not many ads that give me goosebumps and you're sitting there and the whole audience you just feel a trickle down it's one of those stop moments then and it had a profound effect on me and it's been shared around our business and it really helped us shape our engagement model with our own teams and a different way to approach it you know go cut fingers nobody nobody takes any notice no more this is just an incredibly good advert fair player to TSE I'll give them a I'll give them a rabbit it changed our view and recently I saw one with a with a with a where the interview and young people who would drive and text and Facebook and Snapchat and things like that but I know what it all is to be honest but and then then a young lady comes in and sits down explains how her parents got killed by somebody who'd been doing that and you'd see the power in the messages is extraordinary and that's why that a motive link is really we think the future of creating a connection to to the human psyche you know that's the new AT&T out from the US and those kids were boasting about their behavior how good they could Snapchat what they could do while they're driving they weren't bossed enough that he sat down with this you were ready for 20 seconds with him and we'll we'll send those links to the videos with the recording to our audience so we've just got a couple questions before we go into this one perhaps the signage could differentiate between work zone from Melvin Blush and change conditions so when when road workers are present are you able to actually provide a clearer indication with regards to when they're on on the on the site and on the site I think that's a really good point I'll follow up on that one Melvin thank you as they get good ideas out of this I've never thought about that one I guess and there's another one here from Daniel he's saying if you want to eliminate the risk why not look to remove the traffic controller from the side of the road and have a mechanized system mobile mobile traffic lights so on yeah I think I think we're actually on this journey of change you know having a traffic controller stood face and down to 55 to ensure I'm not a big fan of and tell by the accent I don't originate from Australia that in the UK the manage traffic rather than control it so they use more and bigger equipment and less people and I think there is a balance of both I think that public interface in urban environments is really strong because you're then dealing with people as well as cars so I think there is a balance but was we've recently undertaken some trials in Queensland using traffic lights to replace the person who stood there it's not just the traffic controller remember though we could have up to 40 people stood not too far from the traffic controller so whilst we could eliminate the traffic controller we can't eliminate those people but actually if we can change driver behavior we can make it entirely safer for everybody including the driver the odd thing is and this is the I think it's a fascinating fact if people as they approach road works slow down 40 kilometers an hour yeah they will get home quicker because the the indifferent speeds create natural traffic jam so the guy traveling at 40 lady comes up behind at 80 she has to slow down rapidly hit a brakes 15 cars later the traffic stops so the actual irregular speed and the person going too quick creates the traffic jam which causes a congestion which causes the angst which causes the abuse and you can see how what snowballs are snowballs out and that bet a lot of people don't wouldn't know that I think a Soviet roads presentation where the best thing people could do on the morning rush I was just staying there laying and we'll get the work quicker and we'll get home quicker instead of jumping across lanes so I'm sure there is some data behind that and it's factual and that that creates congestion itself that was key message of the TIC towards zero it was you at the same conference weren't you yeah yeah there was a head of Vic Grose made that point John Murray John Murray just don't change lanes you increase your risk and it affects traffic flow yeah and really I'll come on today because I just want a bit of help you know we've got we've got 2,000 people out on the network you think we I don't know there'll be 10,000 people on Australia's roads every night that's the reality of it trying to do a job trying to contribute to society and as much as you might think it's an inconvenience there will be a far bigger inconvenience if we didn't fix them you know there's a reason we're a first world country we have economic status we can move freight we can move people we can create value and all we're doing is our little bit to contribute that and if a hundred people on the call are thereabouts can go and change one person's behavior it can change another the benefits to all of us are profound you know reality is someone dies on Australia roads so a lot of people feel it and you know none of us want to end up in that and treat a road work zone like the majority of people treat a school zone you know it would give us a greater chance it would actually reality is we'd be more efficient we could do more we could charge less would save you money in your tax bill there's a whole series of added benefits you know I can tell you many examples of people who've been involved in accidents first hand and the reality is you don't know if it's going to be you who causes it and it is not a good place to be I'll speak from the death of my first boss and it still haunts me to this day do something to change other people's behavior undeniable and I think that's what a lot of people don't realize that 80 to 90 percent of most traffic crashes that may just happen these are things which are momentary spur so if you can try and everyone takes responsibility and shares that out we can reduce that risk so how would you sleep better enough if people took step double would you have a greater rest how do you find the pressure you have to deal with with that many people out on the road well you see the bag well Jerome can see the bags under my eyes I've never slept particularly well listen we do a lot of work to try and manage our risk and our work sites we try and engage we try and use near miss we have some really stringent critical controls we have good practice in place I'm much happier when I feel as though we can control our risk and many of the near miss has reported things that we need to change and we can then control third party public is the one where it is really really difficult to control and you're almost at risk from other people's behavior rather than your own actions if we could get people to follow some of the simple rules and help us on the journey and provide good feedback you know of what we do well and what we do badly then it will give us a give us a better chance and I might sleep a little bit better this is where I think it's a good one we can feed in there's a question here from Ian could we better utilize social media such as Twitter for motorists to provide feedback and for contractors to inform and update the public as long as they're not driving while they do it I think I think now the whole platform of how we interact is changing you know cars are getting smarter drivers are getting better informed you know if you look at what government are doing around some of the journey time reliability stuff so if you're going from here to there it's going to be eight minutes so we are getting a bit smart I think I think we always struggle to cable with technology but I think there is a lot of effort going into that space so I think yeah we could you need to have smart technology to match it of course that needs to know point the send in somebody's message saying that road works your approach and there's a 40 when you go in the other direction we've used the telegraph system so this is a system where you put a message out over the radio waves as people approach now that was done in a trial again in Queensland for TMR and it's what are used in many of the tunnels so now as you're in the tunnels you'll get a message on your radio if there's an incident telling you what to do you're not allowed to use it and because of broadcast and regulations I understand wholesale so but in some specific areas we have seen that and that provides a better informed public which is a key part of what we've got to do it's quite comforting when you're in the tunnel and you've got your radio on and you hear a message you feel like well you know they're keeping you in the loop yeah I agree I agree I thought it was brilliant and you know that little snippet of information allows you as a driver to make choice and decisions which I think promoting that's a really good thing are you aware of any states will actually coordinate that their journey plan where you can go online and you can see all what's going on so if I'm doing some journey management I'm going from A to B if I check that onsite and I go well I'm going to avoid these sort of spots all I couldn't answer that honestly and say I absolutely know what I can tell you is I went on my iPhone the other day and I put it in my journey and it showed me red roots on an iPhone so I don't know where that information came from as to where congestion naturally sit so there is information available I'm sure there will be people far cleverer than me on the call who know where that's available from but I understand it's becoming wider available yet Daniel just came through some of the same thing Google Maps yeah thank you Daniel for your support on that but it is and we are what people have got to take the time to check be prepared and you know I don't know maybe I'm just old-fashioned but some of it just comes down to good old-fashioned manners how often these days as a motorist when you know lanes are merging do you see you put your hand up and wave and say thank you and there's no reciprocation it's almost as though let's decide it would be becoming intolerant of each other or time is that critical that you haven't got a second to spare actually think if people understood that what time really costs them over what it could save them we might be in a better place as well right and Geraint is any question standing out for you as we start to go towards the end of our webinar there's always there's a we always have a plethora of questions coming through so we try and feed them on through but I'll let Jim move on a little bit more than and we're coming I know we're coming up to the end but I'll grab a couple more and take so I'm old-fashioned you get nothing for free in life so and never be disappointed with a nor but it's always worth asking the question so on the call what could you do to help the reality is everybody could set the example actually slow down and have patience and then particularly if you've got young people in the car with you that behavior as you've seen in one of the adverts of the young child on the string you know young people follow examples and if you set that example that can only be a good thing if you raise awareness with your friends and family not just at roadworks but particularly when you're moving your vehicle around your property that the risk to young people is profound 17 young people have died being run over by relatives at least take that message back home think about how you park your car think about where the locks on your doors are particularly with young children raise awareness in your organization see if you can get changed you you guys represent girls some big organizations from what I understand and do something positive around that and and get involved you know as I say within seven steps you can touch everybody else in the world apparently or 4.2 if you could do something proactive and change the status quo we don't have to accept it it would really really help what we're trying to achieve and help keep our people safe then we got two good questions here as well like what can you do I think this actually draws on to some solution sort of focus as well like one is around total removal of traffic control the people is often limited by state government regulations is it different from state to state yes so we don't have a harmonized traffic control law in Australia one law would actually make it easier for us as practitioners but it would make it far more reliable for the public to understand particularly anybody who drives in the state to understand that is a set of signs that mean roadworks are coming so that that standard would be would be well received I believe and this is where Melbourne's actually a good one in here and this is a good agreement for councils so getting some leadership from there around data standards for road alerts working with suppliers etc as well any any source of accurate data is well received we have a comprehensive system where we can we've set it up to use data because quite often you know people's perception tends to be their reality you know people's perception for example every road works there's no work going on you never know that's not always true but if we can the more data we can amass the better our decision making will be around where we put the efforts in to get the best outcomes be it councils be it at skill zones and you know to hear that I can't remember who was earlier who said his wife had stopped reporting you know that's the worst thing that can happen really you know we've got to keep people we've got to be relentless about report and it's the only way to bring change is by saying something normal silence is consent you know and if you think back to the reporting if the council is being receiving that warning in a trend in an area and then a young child is hurt no one's acted on that god forbid that's the worst god that's the worst question you've got to answer isn't it I mean silence is consent isn't it when that's that was a famous advert from some years ago is and that was that was around people who got hired at work on that on that on that on that advert but you've got a voice you need to use it I mean god forbid I've got an eight and a six year old girl they go across three skill crossings every day you know what I actually feel I feel better that they're going to cross a skill crossing because of demand for some fabulous people these are these are true volunteers to the community who put themselves and put other people first you know I've always held the skills on as something that we should be incredibly proud of and to see people's behavior changes always given me hope that they can change in a work zone you know if you're seeing something different the skills on it needs to be raised to the skill the skill need to act upon that I know for a fact my two little girls if I saw anything I will be straight on the phone I'm a six and a four year old and I totally align with you there Jim and the reality is and the very start it was schools on versus work zone I've probably wandered off in a million different directions and gone off topic but reality is there's no difference it's exactly the same people it's exactly the same circumstance a slightly different audience and a slightly different user but you know any failure in either resulting catastrophic harm I don't want caddy so catastrophic harm and either I just want you know people to be able to go about their business safely and you know let's see what we can do to drive some change thank you very much Jim it's been a pleasure having you here and I knew this was going to be a fantastic webinar and thank you everyone for the fantastic questions I've heard and raised me for helping uh facilitate it as well thanks for the opportunity thank you for the awesome webinar Jim for coming in