Evening Post. MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1929. ROAD LAW: RAZZLE AND DAZZLE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 133, 2 December 1929, Page 10

Evening Post. MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1929. ROAD LAW: RAZZLE AND DAZZLE

A forecast of the British Road Traffic Bill, published in Saturday's issue, states that the disregarded speed limit of 20 miles an hour for motor traffic will be scrapped, and that a speed limit of 30 miles an hour will be adopted for three types of automobile (the bus, the heavier commercial vehicle, and the char a bane) without speed limit for the other types. This provision is not quite in accord with the No. 1 report of the British Royal Commission on Transport. The Commission recommended that—provided pneumatic tires were fitted on all wheels—motor buses should have a limit of 35 miles an hour; goods vehicles, if not exceeding 2\ tons, unladen weight, should have a limit of 30 miles an hour. According to the forecast, the Bill will take the smaller limit and make it apply to the three types mentioned; but pneumatic tired motor-cars and motor-cycles will otherwise be unlimited in speed. Their drivers will, however, be punishable for dangerous driving. The idea behind the increased and simplified speed limit is to create a speed limit-that can be, and will be, enforced, and to dispense with the unenforceable; simultaneously, to tighten up the enforcement of penalties—fine and/or imprisonment— both for breach of such speed limits as remain, and for dangerous driving. The Commission recommended:

These speed limits should be rigorously enforced. The penalties for dangerous driving should be considerably increased; fines should be raised to a maximum of £50 in the case of a first offence, and £100 in tho case of a second 'or subsequent offence, with imprisonment as an alternative in either case; upon a second or subsequent conviction the licence should be automatically suspended for a period of I not less than six months.

The cabled forecast includes the automatic suspension of licence on a second conviction, but does not specify the fines. It is likely, however, that the fines also will be in the Bill when it appears, for not only have they the endorsement of the Commission, but they were actually in the draft Bill submitted by the Ministry of Transport to the Commission for its investigation. In proposing to equip the law with teeth that are intended to bite, and not merely for show purposes, the British Commission has rejected a watering-down provision that was in the draft Bill. InHhat provision the Ministry proposed to draw a legal distinction between "dangerous" and "careless" driving. The Commission reports flatly that this would be "impracticable":

"We are afraid that if this proposal became law, it would have the effect of rendering nugatory the severe penalties which can be imposed for dangerous driving.

But the report contains (although the cabled forecast does not) an alternative:

Although holding that a differentiation_ between dangerous and careless driving would prove in practice to be impossible, we think there should be a penalty for a minor offence of a definite character which could be enforced. We suggest it might be called failing to observe a road sign." If any person fails to observe or obey a road sign in any of the following cases, if he fails to dray up at a white line in towns where theie is traffic control, or passes an island or central lamp-post on the wrong side, or fails to go "dead slow" on approaching a major road from a minor road, or fails to slow down and drive cautiously through a danger zone, or past a school, ne should be guilty of an offence.

For that offence the maximum fine should be £20 for first and £50 for second, with an alternative of imprisonment up to three months for the second offence. The Commission is of opinion that this minor offence could be created without undermining the effectiveness of the provision against dangerous driving. It emphasises the uselessness of the small fines current under the present law, and the need of dealing with offenders uniformly and effectively. So many other matters than actual speed enter into consideration that evidence of speed is no longer deemed to be a decisive factor in deciding questions of guilt. At the same time the speed test, where retained, should be of the utmost importance to the preservation of roads. The proposd speed limits are, in fact, "based on the damage done to the roads, having regard to the weight and size of the vehicles concerned, the character of the tires with which they are fitted, and whether they are drawing trailers or not."

Other points dealt with in the report, but not in the cabled forecast, are of interest to New Zealand. It is proposed that persons driving animals on the road after dark should be compelled to carry a light. Drivers who strain their eyes to see the edge of the bitumen, in the face of the glare of approaching lights, will be interested to read that, "to prevent dazzle, all cars carrying headlights should be fitted with apparatus for dipping or swivelling them; failure to use these devices should be' an offence." Here in New Zealand it used to be good form to "dim," until the regulations prevented it, since yhen the question of dazzle seems to have been allowed to drift. The question whether a local

authority should have the ri<»ht to provide and to sell car-parking space is answered in the affirmative.

All local authorities should be authorised to provido car parka on land acquired for the purpose, or garages at convenient places, and to make a charge for their use.

Not only that, for it is further recommended that "local authorities should have power to compel drivers of vehicles to use the facilities provided." (If, moreover, drivers of vehicles had been given power to compel local authorities to provide the facilities which drivers can be compelled to use, the jams at Day's Bay last summer might never have taken place). While compulsory parking is to be discretionary with local authorities, the Commission is by no means in favour of leaving everything to local initiative or even to tlie initiative of the Ministry of Transport. That Ministry, it is recommended, should have power to make regulations relating to brakes, silencers, steering gear, and tires^ "but questions relating to such important matter as speed limits, maximum unladen weights, and axle weights should be definitely'decided by Act of Parliament, and should not be capable of alteration except by .legislation." Regarding the intoxicated driver, the Commission thinks that a driver should be liable if he "be so under the influence of drink or drugs as to be incapable of having proper control." The report is a reminder of the huge volume of work awaiting the New Zealand Transport Department, even apart from those higher administrative questions that turn on political policy.