It is hard to comprehend the sort of blind stupidity of drivers speeding through accident scenes, endangering the lives of emergency service personnel.
That they might be risking their own lives in the process does not seem to factor in their obsession with getting to their destination.
They do not consider the old adage; it is better to be late than dead on time.
That inability to think beyond their own desires, ignoring the reality of what they are encountering, is particularly concerning.
What would any of these people do if they were first on the scene of an accident? Put their foot down and get out of there as fast as possible?
Often our first responders will be volunteers, people who leave their loved ones or workplaces to serve the public in situations already hazardous enough without idiotic drivers adding to the challenges.
Fenz Otago group manager Bobby Lamont is clearly so worried about the trend, he has gone public on the issue.
He pointed to an impatient driver who ignored road accident signs and firefighters asking them to slow down at an accident at Clyde, a situation which turned into a "very dangerous situation for our people".
But this is not an isolated incident.
While such outbursts of driver disregard for safety are happening across the country, he made special mention of the behaviour of motorists in Otago and Southland.
This is not anything for either province to be proud of.
He recounted another incident in Dunedin where a firefighter at a car crash was verbally abused and almost dragged out of the fire truck by a motorist irate the road was closed. The person then drove the wrong way past firefighters who were directing traffic.
Nationally, over two years, 55 instances of poor motorist behaviour were recorded at incident sites, but Mr Lamont believes the situation has become so commonplace there is under-reporting.
This in itself is concerning. Even an incident which might be considered minor should be treated as important and followed up.
A motorist who has behaved badly once without checking may be emboldened to do it again but with serious consequences.
We wonder where this sort of thinking comes from.
Does the government’s messaging about the need to remove red tape, supposedly smothering the country, so we can all get things done easier, get interpreted by these people as a call to ignore any rules they might not want to comply with?
The government may not have helped with the way it has played into some motorists’ dislike of anything they see as an impediment to going faster and furiously with its upping of speed limits, its disdain for spending on cycleways, and its pandering to petty irritation about road cone numbers.
Mr Lamont has called for people to be patient and obey the rules before one of his firefighters gets hurt.
As he says, traffic management is put in place for the safety of everyone, including motorists.
Perhaps the government could spend some money on a new advertising campaign about the importance of following traffic management rules, at crash sites, and other times when the progress of motorists may need to be temporarily impeded or slowed.
It might prove more useful than the digital dob-in form to report excessive use of road cones.
As commentators have pointed out, a similar road cone hotline in Britain in the early 1990s made then-Prime Minister John Major a laughing stock. Only five reports out of 17,000 resulted in any change.
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden believes we do not slow down for road cones because we see too many of them and associate them with frustration rather than harm prevention. She thinks if there were fewer cones that behaviour will change because we will know there is a risk, and harm should be reduced as a result.
It’s a big call.
