GLARING HEADLIGHTS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2836, 29 July 1916, Page 10

GLARING HEADLIGHTS

MOTORISTS TO BE PROSECUTED. A decision important to motorists and the public generally was come to at the City Council on Thursday evening, when the By-Laws Committee approved of the action that the police be asked to proceed against '.hose motorists who use brilliant headlights of such a shape that they throw a light right across the road and as high above the car as below it. This refers particularly to those motorists who use brilliant acetylene and electric lights, of a power sufficient to dazzle the eyes of anyone approaching in an opposite direction, and so give cause for accidents that need not be. One motorist— a medical man who has a good deal of night driving to do between Wellington and the Trentham Camp—stales -that he never makes the trip at night without having to pull up at least five or six times, until -those cars with the "glnvers'' go by. He states that it is utterly unsafe to oroceed whilst in the focus of such lights, as one never knows what obstacle may be hidden in the gloom ahead. On a recent evening, he relates, after stopping until such a. road-hog went by, he went slowly ahead until the dazzle was out of his 'eyes, and it was very well he did so, for right in his track was a cart piled high with goods, proceeding at a walking pace right in the track ho would have followed bad he kept going through tho light area. This medical man states that before the wav there were regulations existing in England to prevent motorists using such lights, to tile detriment, and possible death, of other people. The City Engineer (who is a motorist) states that the evil is every bit as black as it is painted, and for that reason they are urging the nolice to administer the by-law provided to check the nuisance. This may be done by providing the lamps with hoods, which project over the top and sides, and concentrate (lie light, on the track to be travelled bv the car, instead of spreading the rays all over the road, mid even on to the'footpaths. The effect of a man hying to steer a car ■with reasonable lights in the face nf one, with "glarers" is that of a captain of a vessel trying to manoeuvre his steamer with the glare of a searchlight playing oil the bridge. The'danger is a real one that should be checked.