The transport minister hates speed bumps. Auckland’s mayor hates road cones. But whose eternal flame of hate burns brightest? We looked at the facts.

For a man making an announcement about the future, Simeon Brown spent a lot of his press conference on the government’s transport priorities on Monday looking back. In a stinging rebuke of the Key administration, he criticised previous governments for funding “nice-to-have” walking and bike infrastructure, which only serve to unclog our roads, reduce emissions, and save pedestrians’ and cyclists’ similarly nice-to-have lives. Past efforts to set speed limits at survivable levels were also vexing, as was the construction of several in-lane bus stops. 

But nothing riled the transport minister like the small strips of raised concrete that dot some of our more dangerous roads: speed bumps. His press release dripped with venom over the hated humps. The country, he said, had become “infested” with them. Brown only reduced funding for cycling from a whopping 4.1% of the transport budget to 1.4%, which could save enough money to build up to 17cm of the East-West Link. He promised nothing would go toward speed bumps. Not one blue cent.

In fostering a deep-seated hatred for an inanimate object, Brown has a lot in common with another politician, Wayne Brown (no relation). Auckland’s mayor harbours a similar resentment to the transport minister, only the target of his ire is brighter and more conical. He sees road cones wherever he goes, and he seethes. He complains to AT’s chief executive. He complains to the Herald. He threatens to go feral.

There’s no question about the sincerity of either man’s distaste. But whose furnace of anger burns most strongly? We fed the evidence into The Spinoff’s in-house hate matrix to find out.

Hate matrix quadrant #1: Spiritual agony

Both Browns are tortured by their inert, lifeless enemies on an existential level. Wayne Brown has devoted large amounts of time and social media bandwidth to barracking about cones. He’s commanded the council’s comms staff to call out “road cone mania” and commissioned reports into cone overuse. But when no cones are in sight, he appears to loosen up. He surfs. He cheers on the Warriors. He has a slice of birthday cake and tells his staff to go back to work.

The transport minister’s pain appears to linger. His language is foreboding. The bumps aren’t just annoying; they’re a plague. Even in an ostensibly fun video about how he does have a driver’s licence, he can’t help barking about how he’ll raise the speed limit on Pakuranga Rd. 

Edge: Simeon Brown

Hate matrix quadrant #2: Obsession 

Though he’s clearly haunted by bumps, Simeon Brown has other concerns. Labour. Cyclists. People who say he doesn’t have a driver’s licence. His mayoral counterpart is more single-minded, texting 12 individual road cone complaints to AT’s chief executive in six months. “WTF is this? Dugan St west, Wayne,” he texted, along with a picture of some cones, after attending a meeting at council last September. “T8 traffic management on Queen St, Victoria St is rude, slow and excessive and everything that is wrong with this city,” he wrote last June. The texts are revealing as an unfiltered glimpse into the mayor’s personal angst. He’s not waging a culture war or performing for the media. He’s genuinely passionate about the cone-killing cause.

Edge: Wayne Brown

Hate matrix quadrant #3: Anger 

Wayne Brown may talk tough about plagues and mania, but there’s a note of fun to his campaign. He’s hamming it up, revelling in his role as the cone grinch.

Simeon Brown’s rage seems to come from a darker reservoir. It’s less loud, but more violent. Multiple candid pictures show him standing arms crossed on the side of the road near Howick, alternately glowering at a slightly reduced speed limit or the unrealised possibility of a bump.

Edge: Simeon Brown

Hate matrix quadrant #4: Direct action

Simeon Brown has wielded the cold sword of budgetary allocation against his inexpensive concrete enemy, guaranteeing no central government money will go toward speed bumps. That’s a significant blow not just to the bumps themselves, but also to the bodies of the pedestrians who will now be struck at speeds of at least 50km/h, inflicting almost certain death.

Still, the transport minister has never actually pulled a Lisa Prager and taken an axe* to a speed hump. He’s never driven a digger over a block of raised asphalt. The mayor, on the other hand, has waged literal physical violence against cones, ploughing them down in a bus, and in one widely viewed social media video, dumping several of them straight into a Green Gorilla skip.  

The hate matrix spits out a draw at two apiece. Perhaps that’s right. Brown and Brown are two sides of the same coin. Yin and yang. Rubber and tarmac. The objects of their wrath seem different but in reality they’re the same: a shared hatred of having to slow down. 

Life for the Browns should be an open highway stretching to the horizon. Nothing should be in the way. Not cones. Not bumps. Not potholes. Certainly not road workers, cyclists, pedestrians, or schoolchildren. Lately it seems we’ve become too concerned with stuff like whether people can do things like “get through a shift without being run over by a Ford Ranger” or “survive a short walk across the road”. Those days are over. It’s time to put the pedal to the floor and drive.