PEDESTRIAN DANGERS

Hokitika Guardian, 10 December 1925, Page 4

PEDESTRIAN DANGERS

IX BUSY 'KBI.SCO. AUCKLAND. December 7. Some terse and pithy comments on the ha hits of the American motorist were made by Mr Gordon Urjiser, ot New Plymouth, on his return from a visit to California. -Mr Eraser, who is chairman of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce, motored many thousands of miles over Californian roads. "In California.” he said. " there is a. motor-ear to every three and a halt people. I wondered why there should be a fraction until I started across .Market Street, San Francisco, alien I found the other half littered about wailing for the ambulance.” Mj- Eraser spoke of a prominent sign lie had seen displayed on a motor lorry. It read: “ A Blind Man Drives This Car." “ It seemed to me.” was Mr Eraser's comment, “to typify the kindly interest that is taken in the pedestrian in San Francisco. Courtesy to a fellow driver seems long lo hayy disappeared. If one is to progress on the road at all every opening must l>e rushed, a lull-speed dash, when a gap comes. The side-st.reels, he added, were comparatively safe. The volume of traffic was much like l.lueen Street ai b p.in., and policemen on point duly Mould seldom whistle ttallic on to a pedestrian until the hitler was at least, liall-Mav a.Tos.- i lie road. There Mere iro.ssings m here the cm I Urol Mas excellent, but the universal impatience and hurry soon affected even the idling stranger, and it was the question of disorder that seemed to be responsible lor the alarming crop of accidents. These Mere not viewed with inditfer-. cnee by the authorities, however, for brainy men Mere constantly building slogans of warning ‘'There Are Enough Cripples Horn. Why Make Morel'” wits the slogan that decorated every taxi of one well-knonn fleet. “I Mas i u l reading one striking warning ol ibis safely campaign.” said Mr Eraser, “when I bad to lake a (lying leap to avoid the morgue, -n I caiiiml quote it with accuracy. Of course these fleeting impressions are of city streets'. In the country you drive your car in procession. like an exaggerated funeral, some hundreds ol miles in length. But l here is no corpse there, ai least not nhen the procession starts. Barents in America know belter than to allow their children to walk to school. They .'ill drive their own cars, which may lie seen parked round the classrooms hy the hundred. “ In California,” he cootinoud, “a driver uas obliged by Llie State law to stop when he approached a level crossing. and look out for the engine. The curious thing was that every driver actually obeyed the instruction, and invariably slopped his ear. whether there was an engine in sight or not.

Mr I' - laser's chief impression of California taxi drivers was that they drove with their feet instead of with their heads. Hralies were the rmlv tilings between the pedestrian and the next world.