That's one of the points in the video: the paperwork tends to obscure the state of the system to decision makers. It's easy for the bridge inspectors (or even a random member of the public) to see that it needs to be closed down and repaired, but it's not what the decision-makers see: they see a 100-page report with a long list of action items, many of which are not actually incredibly urgent, much like every other bridge they get inspected. It makes it difficult to actually get a good sense of where the bigger problems are. (of course it should actually be the case that they are on top of everything that is highlighted in the inspections, but that's expensive and it seems like no-one wants to pay for it)
That's related, but it's not my point. Saying "decision-makers miss details in 100-page reports" makes it sound like the report is merely too thorough, and the inspectors did too good a job.
My point is the report's summary could have said "This bridge will fall down within 3 years" instead of obscuring the with vague, watered-down jargon like "structurally deficient"
The problem is the inspectors aren't even in a position to make a judgement call like that: they're given 100 pages of boxes to fill in and they have to color inside those lines. It's a systemic issue of how the jobs are split up and the communication works between them. (see the fact that the reviews did indeed trigger some work to be done that would actually make that judgement call... by an engineering firm that never actually saw the bridge and in part for that reason screwed up the call).
