OPINION: I have no issues with people jumping off State Highway 2 and taking Snodgrass Rd.
This gets these locals onto the backroads and into Tauranga a teeny bit quicker.
Western Bay of Plenty District Councillor Don Thwaite does have an issue with it.
These people get called 'rat runners' but Thwaite reckons they are actually lower than rats and it's unfair to rats to call them that. He says it's not rat running, it's pushing in and they wouldn't do it in the supermarket queue.
Well, hang on Thwaite. You reckon rats behave better, but rats don't have to get into Tauranga every day to take get to work. It's some of the worst traffic in the country.
A 22km trip can take two hours! There are roadworks and road cones in the way. But this shortcut can take fifteen minutes off the trip.
Heavy trucks must not be allowed to do this, but for ordinary punters, it's their right. Using local knowledge to take the back roads is a Kiwi tradition. Every New Zealander would have done this at least once in their life. So by Thwaite's definition we're all lower than rats.
I'll put my hand up here. There was heavy traffic in Auckland this week trying to get to a meeting in Auckland with my boss so I took a well-trodden shortcut through Mt Eden.
I'm a rat runner. I'm not proud of it. But it's a reality. People will go the way the roads make them go. It's the force of nature. It's survival. And calling people rats won't stop it.
The only thing that will stop it is fixing our bloody roads.
So tonight I've got no issues with 'rat runners'. If there are rats here, it's Waka Kotahi.
Patrick Gower is the host of Paddy Gower Has Issues.
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