Overloaded Buses

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19999, 26 July 1939, Page 14

Overloaded Buses

Sir. -As a patron of our borough I; uses. I have often bad occasion to notice, particularly with the last bus from town on a Saturday night, how 1 hose buses are grossly overloaded. Li i Saturday night this bus —one of the older models—was loaded to such ;in extent that it was well-nigh impossible to reach a strap do be a straphanger on account of the crush. When loading the driver told all persons standing that they must stand two deep in°order to .get everyone aboard. Now this vehicle proudly flaunted a notice in your face to mock you that it was licensed to carry 1!) persons seated and six standing, While I j venture to state that there were 50 | persons, if not. more, crushed in with |no thought of comfort or safety. 1 do i nr? blame the drivers, who are most I courteous, for this disgraceful state of chairs, but I do blame the persons | responsible for such gross nbusemen! i o f the licensing laws. Our council has ■ in its employ two traffic officers, who ; l notice are most careful in carrying out their duties, which includes prosecutions for the overloading of lorries, but who do net seem to notice the overloading of their own council buses. Which is the more serious? I The overloading of a truck carrying merchandise, or the overloading of a Inis carrying human freight. I know what the council’s answer to this would 'be: that it would not be profitable to run two buses at such a late hour. Bu? why are the regulations adhered to in every other town in New Zealand and not in Gisborne? Do not the persons who patronise the buses deserve some consideration of comfort end safety, or are they just entitled to be trealed like a lot of slice]) and be penned in a box of wood and glass in order t t make the bus receipts look a little larger? May the council, who should be cooperating with the Government in the road safety precautions, think just what might happen to all these per.-ons should an accident occur to a bus carrying twice its licensed number, and remember that they as a municipal body should expect no more privileges than any private firm or individual. If they do so. then this flouting of the regulations which has been going on for so long may soon be remedied and the bus patrons may feel safer and surer while riding on their own municipal conveyances. STRAPHANGER.