AUTO-CAR NUMBERS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1986, 17 February 1914, Page 8

AUTO-CAR NUMBERS.

POPULAR IGNORANCE OF THE

REGULATIONS.

RISKS OP THE ROAD.

•In. an article that appeared in The Dominion last week it was. pointed out that the statutory laws of tho country in respect- to the registration of motor-cars.and,cycles were"being disregarded notr so much perhaps because of tho liability involved as through ignorance of the regulation's embodied in-the'Motir Registration Act. Under this Act all motor-cars should be registered with a. - registering authority (in Wellington there are two, the Wellington CiM Council and tho Hutt County Council)?. It has conio to tire knowledge -if the city -authorities that in several cases registration,numbers havo been duplicated,by persons having sold cars and bought others. The purchasers of the old cars are. under the impression that the number's of the cars- Were automatically transferred to them, whilst the purchasers of the new .cars sometimes retained the old numbers quite,innocently.... The duty of a>.ar owner'is to' notify the City Corpora-tion.-of the transfer of his Mraber to the,buyer of the car—otherwisa lie runs a grave risk of, being sued for. any damage -that car. may 'be responsible for; If such notification of trarisfer is not made he is still the official owner of the-car and liable for its behaviour.

Mr. L. S. Drake, motor inspector for. the Cit.y Council, stated .that only a few, days' ago he found a case of duplication of number?. Be warned the seller'of the ono car : that he was responsible for. the car until tho number had been transferred.•, which information was so greatly valued that the transfer was' made the same day. Mr.' Drake is : of opinion that the law is rather toose|,y' constructed' and badly needs amending in-line with motoring-progress in other; parts of the world. Far instance, the initial letters of districts, used o'n the, number, plates of cars are said-to bo very confusing. Thero are no fewer than four counties—Manawatu, Rangitikei, Wellington, and tho Hurt—using the letter "W," and numeroiis others' using "W" .in combination with sojne other letter. These were all in .the Province of 'Wellington, and if. the driver had.failed to register"and stuelj:. a plate oiv. his "car without, .so registei'ihg, .no one woukl, be any .'.the. wiser... If .stutek u'prjie could'say. that the car was registered with one or other of the neighbouring authorities. Detection-of such a-petty fraud would.be very ■difficult as the law stands at present.- These matters had been, under consideration for some time past, and a remit of the question is to be submitted to the next conference of. tho New Zealand Municipal Association. Respecting taxis and cars belonging to garages, Mr. Drake is of opinion that they should bear the initials of the proprietor or firm in.order to bo easily recognised. In some cases cars, he alleged, wore put on the road in rush times tha.t had never been' registered. Mr. Drake favours an annual license j fee, chargeable to tho owners of all cars (private or company) which would make the task of keeping a correct reg- j ister easy, .and at the same time would ] create revenue, for the upkeep of the 1 roads. The price of a driving certificate in Wellington, was only Is.; in Christchurch it was 10s. Tesi-drivcra paid £1 Is. in each town. In London a driving is charged of ss. per year, and taxis paid £2 .2s, per annum. That, however, was only a . first charge, Thero was a Government tax graded, on the horse-power .{calculated on .the cubic capacity of the cylinder). What this means is fully ' sot out in . the "Auto-car" of November 'last, which gives the. amount of tax imposed on certain new auto-cars. One 15-h.p. car has to pay £6 6s. per annum; a 65-70-h.p. ,car, £22 10s.; another 12hlp. car, £4 45.; a ,25-50' ear £6 65.; and,a 30-h.p. car, £8 Bs. Such a tax means an immense source of revenue to the Government t 'and a great aid to the maintenance'of the highways of the Kingdom. Why the .tax -is graded on the horse-power of cars will.be obyious. to all. readers of last week's article, i The greater the horse-power the speedier the car as a rule, and the; faster a car travels the greater damage it does to the surface of the roads over ; which it travels. •

A matter of urgency, according to Mr. Drake, is'the need for rear lights or reflectors at the- rear of all vehicles. In pre-motor days it was considered sufficient if carriage-lamps bad a small red disc at the back, though as often as not these were kept so dirty as to be quite opaque, but with high-speed motors it'was almost imperative that all vehicles should carry rear lights if serious accidents were to ba avoided. There had been some very bad smashes at Home through a motor overtaking and crashing into a vehicle without rear lights, and ho wondered that-there had not been serious trouble on the Hutt Road (where high speeds were developed) from the same cause. Even if the small red reflectors, usually carried at the rear of motor-cars, were adopted, it would be a step in the right direction, as the white liebt of a, motor-car's front lamps easily picks out the red reflectors in the dark.