Poll: Police Detail or Road Flagger

[smoterh.livejournal.com]

[Poll #1577209]

Comments

[balsamicdragon.livejournal.com]

I think that while construction detail work requires certain skills, it certainly does not require the very high (and highly paid) skills of a police officer.

[exsplusohs.livejournal.com]

The majority of experiences I have had with police flaggers in Somerville and the surrounding areas, is that their sole duty is to stand around and look bored. I think a civilian flagger could do an equally adept job at crossing their arms and ignoring any pedestrians who are trying to cross the street at the construction site.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

this. there is construction on Cameron Ave near Mass Ave now, and the cops have not ever once helped to wave myself (with a baby in sling and a toddler on a bicycle) across the street. Just stands there looking annoyed, or carefully avoiding looking at me.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Police overtime is EXPENSIVE and should consequently be avoided whenever possible!

That said, I am only in favor of mandating one over the other if one is demonstrably cheaper than the other. I am always in favor of GOOD ARITHMETIC IN GOVERNMENT.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

it's often semi-retired police officers doing these duties (at least in the district my ex's dad, but I would be in favor of implementing laws that gave them or other part timers priority. I know often they have other structures in place.

I also think police officers deserve more pay than their base salary in general, and I'm pretty sure the union negotiations include compensation from overtime as part of its overall formula.

Also, wasn't there a globe article that showed using flaggers was costing the state more money?

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

It's not overtime, and when someone other than the city government is doing the work (NSTAR, COMCAST, etc) it is paid for BY the company, with a 10% admin fee paid into the city coffers.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the situation.

When a complete lane of traffic is blocked, especially around an intersection, I like to see a police officer there to handle the insane snafus that result. (I am not thrilled about driving through a red light because a flagger tells me to, for example.)

If it's just some side of the road work I'm ok seeing flaggers doing the work.

I used to be strongly pro-police officers getting these details as a way to have construction pay for more police officiers to be on the street, but these days the officers seem to spend all of their time talking on their cellphones while doing detail work, so it doesn't seem like I'm getting any public benefit from it. So then it's just the police officer bonus plan. Which I'm not opposed to, but am not interested in going out of my way to fund, either.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

a lot of people seem to be bringing up the "police officer on the cell phone" example, but I currently walk past 3 construction sites on my way to work and the police at all of them have always been great, and always do a good job of giving pedestrians the right of way (within common sense). I've never seen any of them shirking their duties. granted this is all in cambridge, so perhaps somerville is different.

[craigindaville.livejournal.com]

MA cops act like this is a god-given right for them to receive overtime pay (yes, yes, not paid for by the municipality directly, but let's face it- if a project needs to hire a cop at, say, $30 an hour for 10 hours a day for a week, those costs are factored into the RFP bid and, guess what, the taxpayers pay for that on the other end if it is a public project). But like many thinks in Massachusetts, there is a complete blindness to the fact that pretty much every other state does NOT require uniformed police details at every single freakin' construction project.

And you know what? The world hasn't ended. Cops still buy homes and support families. Life goes on.

But it is so hard to change things in this state, especially when an entrenched interest's money is involved. Just look at the disaster in Boston with the firefighters, who "conceded" to just a 1.5% raise for the privilege of showing up to work sober.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, i was just in CT on vacation, and saw a uniformed police officer flagging at a construction site.

there is a complete blindness to the fact that pretty much every other state does NOT require uniformed police details at every single freakin' construction project.

Neither does Massachusetts, anymore.
Some cities, however, still have it written in their laws/contracts.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I really don't care as long as they are capable of and willing to direct traffic. I've been in too many traffic jams where a "flagger", often but not always a police officer, was just standing by the side of the road, ignoring traffic and chatting with the construction supervisor.

and properly trained...

[anu3bis.livejournal.com]

to keep the site and themselves safe.
The big argument so far is that non-officers don't have proper training to do the job right. Given that the set of police skills includes this ability, and the set of flagger skills is less than the sum of police skills, it should a) be easier and faster to train and b) be cheaper to hire for.

Thus endeth the Venn Diagram

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/news/23670533/detail.html

[ron_newman]

In most cases I'd vote for "neither", as I don't think such details are usually needed at all.

[jimmyfergus.livejournal.com]

Exactly - I came here to vote and there was no option I could agree with.

Why not do like every other developed country I've been to: use temporary traffic lights?

I came to this country and was baffled and amused to see people standing at either end of roadworks with no other job than to turn a little stop/go sign around, like the late 20th century hadn't happened yet. Like the police detail legally required at my wedding - it's nothing more than an employment scheme (and in that case bordering on a protection racket).

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

I'd also vote for "neither".

Since detail cops do nothing most of the time, it's clear that we don't need to have anyone directing traffic at most sites.

At the very few sites that do require traffic direction, such as a road narrowed to one lane handling two-way traffic, I'd prefer civilian flaggers, since I've never seen a detail cop around here who knows how to direct traffic properly.

And it's not just the big evil utility corporations and government agencies that have to pay for detail cops. My condo association had to hire one because we had a tree service truck parked in our quiet residential street.

I saw a civilian flagger for the first time earlier this week, on the ramp from the Alewife garage to 2 west. He was actually paying attention to traffic, and used a hand-held stop sign when the construction truck needed to block the road.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

I don't care who does the flagging but for eFF's sake would they do their eFFing job?!?!! I can not count the number of times I've come into an intersection that's under construction and had to work out with other drivers via eye-contact and hand-signals, who will go next, because the officer "on duty" is talking on the cell phone, or standing with his back to traffic, yacking with the crew. WTF?! Or, you know, I come into the intersection and tap my horn lightly to get the officer's attention, and half the time they look at me like "duh. uh, wha..? whachu honkin' at?" and ignore that there's, you know, something they're supposed to *do* while collecting that paycheck.

So, I guess I think it should be professional flaggers, because then they could be vetted, and better yet, fired if necessary, in a way officers can't be.

[jennyelfenmass.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the one I passed today was texting.

[closetalker11.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I've never done detail or flagging work, and I don't regularly talk to folks who do, so I'd be loathe to assume that if they're not actively engaged in something very active for the 5 seconds I drive by them, it means they're never doing anything at all.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

Sure, it's good that you don't want to assume anything about them in broad terms. But if you observe a behavior, you can make judgments about that behavior without passing judgment on the person. If you see a person driving down the left lane of the highway, and texting and drinking a cup of coffee with no hands on the wheel, it doesn't really matter if that's the first time they're doing that or not, it's still extremely dangerous for everyone around them. If your flagger is texting when you go by, you have still been put into a dangerous situation by a person who is paid a great deal of money to not let you be put in a dangerous situation.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I want cops, it's cheaper for us:

Police detail rates are the flat fee that construction and utility companies have to pay for a detail cop, and most towns require a 10% admin fee, which serves to ADD to the city coffers.

When those companies hire flaggers, the companies have to pay Workman Comp, FICA and Unemployment taxes, which is not paid to the police on detail - they get the flat rate.

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

Who's paying $30/hour to the flaggers and why? $15/hr seems a more than fair wage to me for little effort and little education (am I wrong here? I've never flagged but it doesn't seem too difficult or stressful). Obviously if the cops are cheaper, use the cops, but it's astonishing that flaggers should be so expensive.

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

Obviously, if the civilian flaggers cost MORE than the cops, then we should use the cops. I find it hard to believe, however, that it costs $60/hour to pay civilian flaggers as the Boston.com article suggests (not hard to believe that that's what they'll charge if they can get away with it). In this economy, we ought to be able to find flaggers at near minimum wage. If we pay them say $15/hour (a pretty good wage for doing very little), and assume that benefits, insurance and whatnot double that, it's still 30% cheaper than cops. Are these numbers even in the ballpark?

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

You do realize that all of those flagger contracts are BID on, right?

[miss-lisa-ma.livejournal.com]

I can think of one very good reason to use cops instead of flaggers--cops can pull over the worst aggressive, careless or reckless drivers and ticket/arrested them. Flaggers can't. Let's face it, some of the most hostile driving you'll see anywhere in the continental U.S. is in this area. Half the time people barely even pay attention to cops on detail unless it looks as though they're about to get pulled over; what makes anybody think flaggers will command any respect from the road ragers around here?

[grapefruiteater.livejournal.com]

Cops on construction detail aren't there to be traffic cops, though. I agree that aggressive and reckless driving is a problem, especially in this area. I'd rather see cops patrolling the streets for that purpose specifically than see them standing around texting while some guys are operating a backhoe ten feet away.

[vonelftinhaus.livejournal.com]

I should read above,but alas lack of time, because this might of been said. I know it only confuses the matter but i wish your poll had both as an option because I feel it is per situation- where on a busy road maybe an officer but a very side street off the beaten path maybe a flag/person but like I said it pertains to the situation really and the option should be for either.

[gruene.livejournal.com]

Missing option: NEITHER!

99.998% of the "construction sites" in Somerville can be serviced by traffic cones alone. There is no need to pay anyone to stand out there and be bored stuff for hours on end. Even if you do block a whole lane and need to direct traffic, they have portable traffic lights that you set up that will alternate whose turn it is to go. The whole thing is a ridiculous waste of money.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

I think that every construction site should be evaluated on its own merits.

Some may only need cones or sawhorses with flashing lights or whatever.

Some may need a $15/hour flagger.

Some may need a police officer.

Of course, you'd have to pay someone to evaluate the sites, or every contractor would just be all "Hell, we only need cones!"

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

So what we do now may be the cheapest, who knows.

[anyee.livejournal.com]

I think it's fairly disingenuous to compare flaggers and crossing guards. For the most part, crossing guards spend their time off on the sides while flaggers are usually near, if not in, traffic. Crossing guards usually escort children across defined paths while flaggers are often dealing with a tangled mess of cones and concrete that make little sense. People socially are conditioned to not want to run over people, but intense construction makes most of us want to kill. I'm better the amount of fumes inhaled per unit time is more for a flagger than a crossing guard.