FINE DISPLAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 135, 5 December 1938, Page 10

FINE DISPLAY

HUNDRED VEHICLES

PROCESSION THROUGH CITY

The transport procession through the city today was by a long margin the best demonstration of its kind made in Wellington. About 100 vehicles took part, stretching over a mile of road.

The lead was taken by the Police Pipe Band and later down the mile were the Wellington Artillery Band and the Tramways Band. The high lights of the procession were the six Safety First floats of the Transport Department, very well done indeed in an artistic as well as convincing style. These floats have a long way to go before they get through the campaign, for they are due at Auckland late on Friday afternoon and then will turn back and return to Wellington. Overnight stops will be made at Foxton, Dannevirke, Eltham, and Te Kuiti on the outward trip.

Well up to the head of the procession was a car with not many signs about it, but with Wellington's first motorist at the wheel, Mr. W. H. P. Barber, # who has been on the road with a very good safety first record since 1902. He may properly be described as an experienced motorist —36 years of it.

There were far too many vehicles to particularise, but some of the sections can be mentioned. The Fire Brigade had a turn-out of four engines and ladders; a ten-wheeler truck was quite new to Wellington; Wellington College boys did a good slow cycling job; four wrecked cars pointed the moral; the military people turned out eight of their mechanised units, A.A. gun, searchlight, guns, and divers wagons; the taxi companies forgot about fares for an hour and were there in strong force, the leading companies all being represented; the New Zealand Alliance pointed out drink dangers; trade vehicles were there with the proper emphasis upon safety first in tyres, steel bodies, brakes, and the like; Railway Department buses broke the bylaw about buses in mid-city streets, and, of course, got away with it; and generally the display was a first-rate one, quickly organised by the marshals and the procession subcommittee. 1

Its sole purpose was to call attention to the opening of the campaign and to get public interest and co-operation under way. In that it succeeded, for people turned out from shops and offices and a large number must have come in from the suburbs, for the streets were very busy. The show had only one drawback: it was too successful from the tramway running point of view. It had been

arranged to close parts of the tramway routes while the procession passed— say ten minutes on past experience— but it took much longer than that to get the mile of vehicles through Willis and Manners Streets. HoweveT, no harm was done by that greater-than-anticipated success, and within a few minutes after the passing of the Free Ambulance turn-out, the last section, traffic was running normally.