RIGHT OR LEFT?

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 29, 4 February 1932, Page 12

RIGHT OR LEFT?

HUTT TRAFFIC PROBLEM

Whether a motorist approaching the bridge along Railway avenue, Lower Hutt, and wishing to turn to the right into Victoria street, should go around the traffic island or not was a question that Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., was asked, to'decide in the Lower Hutt Magistrate's Court yesferday when Grace Brown was charged with cutting that corner. _ Sergeant J. W. .McHolm said that the defendant, in. turning-out. of Railway avenue, into Victoria street, had gone to the right of the trarffic island and had had to run across the island to avoid a collision with a child on the road. The police maintained that, she should have driven around the islaud. She could have been charged under tfhe Motor Regulations with failing to keep.to the left of a traffic dome or indicator. .

Counsel pleadled not guilty, saying that the defence womld be a technical one. The island, he sai<?(, was a large one, and it had the effect of extending Victoria .and Tania streets into Railway avenue. It could not be Oaken as a traffic indicator in the middle of one street. That being so, motorists ware entitled to drive to the right of it. , There was no sign on the island to indicate that one must go around it om the left when turning from Railway avenue into "Victoria street. The defendant was a stranger to the locality. Counsel saic'i that the' Wellington Automobile Club h*id felt from the first that there would be trouble with the island. He suggested that; the Magistrate should give a direction to the authorities on the matter. Mr. Woodward reserved his decision until he bias inspected the locality.