TRAFFIC CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 138, 7 December 1929, Page 29

TRAFFIC CONTROL

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE ROAD

PRINCE ON COURTESY

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 18th October.

A striking appeal to motorists to exercise more courtesy on the roads was made by the Prince of Wales at the Commercial Motor Users' Association banquet at the Savoy Hotel this week. "This problem of the roads is a very serious one," he said, "and it may be a very much more serious one if all the commercial motor users and tho private motor users do not get together and co-operate to prevent this becoming a very great battle of the roads." The Prmco referred to his own experience a 8 a motorist ana an airman, and made his appeal, "looking down from my new 'vantage point.' " "One of the most important things commerical and private automobile users have in common," said the Prince is that we share the same roads. Let me talk for one minute of what I may call the psychology of the road. That is a thing that we motorists must have studied at many times. Take the private motor user who is at times extremely He never thinks of the.unfortunate man who is driving a lorry say, from Bristol or Birmingham "I" very much further afield, and is ar-

riving in London, and ho is alWciys in- i r elined to put him over the rails. (Laughter.) The next timo that lorrydriver meets a motor ho tries to get a bit back and does not draw into the side of the road and get out of the way." AN ACCIDENT STORY. Tho Princo told a story of a friend of his who became involved in an acoi- ' dent. "My friend had a very bad accident after a fejlow collidod with him going at a very great speed. My friend was very badly injured and tho driver of the other car was hurt even more. When he was in hospital the first thing that the other driver said when he came to after two days was 'I hope I have not lost my nerve*' My friend said, 'If I could only afford it I would give that follow a horse and let him try his nerve in Leicestershire.'" (Loud laughter.) Commercial users of . motors, the Princo added, could impress on their /. employees to give room to theso vehicles % built for another purpose, and enable « people to keep their appointments by not blocking the road. n The Prince referred to a book which V had been sent to him concerning trials- J for heavy motor vehicles held in Liverpool in 1898. "Even in those early days," he said, "special attention was paid to noise, smell, visible vapour, and other nuisances when driving. Although some of us may wonder if there has been very much improvement in that direction we have to admit a very substantial advance in the average speed- of commercial motor vehicles which were then required to reach a A speed of only six miles per hour in 4 class one, and four miles per hour in 1 class two." (Loud laughter.) \ Mr. Herbert Morrison, Minister of Transport, said that the Government / had carefully considered tho first report of the Eoyal Commission on TransPort, which dealt with tho control of A traffic on roads, and would shortly have f the second report dealing with the licensing and regulation of public service i vehicles. It was impossible any longer i to defend the present system of JiceV f sing, based as it was on Acts which * were passed long before motor vehicles were known. The urgency of traffic control and licensing was fully recognised by the Government, and would be dealt with at. the earliest practical moIn China there are about'lß,ooo miles of roads over which cars can travel in favourable seasons of the year The new Government is busy with're ß on- i struction and road building as one of the^major means by which it is hoped U* 7? c country. Wg back prosperity, and prevent famines. At Shantrhax, there are more than 12,000 passen- \ ger carg and trucks. Many individual tCStST eStaWi3h^ *» *« -to Q