MOTOR PARKING IN FRONT OF SHOPS

Hutt News, Volume 1, Issue 4, 20 May 1927, Page 4

MOTOR PARKING IN FRONT OF SHOPS

Sir, —It is not without a little reluctance that I venture to enter this controversy, and being mindful of the advice of the famous philosopher, I shall endeavour to keep my language within the bounds of propriety and, above all, to be explicit. If, considering the width of the Main Street, and the volume of local motor traffic usually parked (other than on a Friday evening, and then only for perhaps an hour and a half when the through, traffic is not very great) as compared! with the same problem in Queen Street, Auckland, and Manners Street, Wellington, a by-law regulating the parking of cars is deemed necessary, it seems that the limit, of twenty minutes allowed by the local by-laws is unreasonably oppressive. I understand that our parking by-laws are based on the Auckland City By-laws which surely at the present time are not appropriate to the position here. Owing to the complexity of the affairs of modern civilization it is frequently impossible to transact business (other than that of a nature similar to the purchase of, say, a pound of plums) in twenty minutes and just as often it is difficult to foresee and estimate the time that one's car will be left standing,- and accordingly in the circumstances one cannot be expected to break the continuity of one's business interviews to remove a car to a more remote parking area. The only alternative therefore, is to risk the imposition of a penalty at the hands of a Magistrate and the marring of one's otherwise

untarnished escutcheon for the sake of perhaps, five extra minutes which may effect the consummation of a transaction of importance not only to the parties directly concerned, but also to the Borough at large. It may be thought that I am unduly exaggerating the position, but I can visualise such a situation arising. Section 35 of the local by-laws reads as follows:—"No person shall leave any vehicle for a longer period of twenty minutes at any one time in any of the following streets or places . . .. " One interpretation is that, as long as a car-owner returns to his vehicle within twenty minutes from the time he departed from it, he is quite at .liberty to depart again, and as he has not "left" (in the sense of being "absent from it") the vehicle for more than twenty minutes he is not liable to be prosecuted—if this interpretation is correct, then the car owner can repeat the procedure above outlined, and is under no obligation to move his car even six inches and accordingly any obstruction or danger created by the parking of vehicles is therefore obviated. The issue is of fundamental importance, and although other towns have created a precedent we should be progressive enough not to perpetuate a stupidity here.—l am, etc., Lower Hutt, C. R. BARRETT. 13th May, 1927.