The problem wasn't some drunk idiot walking into a crane at night, it was that the contractors had blocked the footpath, forcing pedestrians - including the disabled, small children and people with babies in strollers - to walk into the road unprotected. I mean, would you think it was over-reavhing paternalism if the police intervened because some contractors set up a crane in a lane of the freeway without setting up cones, etc.? It's the same basic issue.