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Hokitika Guardian, 13 October 1928, Page 4

The problem of heavy traffic on district roods again cropped up at the County meeting this wee.v. Under the system of road classification there is a limit to loading as a safeguard to extraordinary wear and tear. But as one of the Clouncillors admitted, the Council was lax in enforcing the regulations. Where industry is concerned, it is perhaps only natural at these times when employment is not too rife, that the local body should be as sympathetic as possible in permitting millers, for instance, to keep going to the best of their ability Nowadays motor traffic is trying out the roads very severely. This applies in particular to the less used country roads, not built originally for the swiftly moving heavily laden traffic. A road might carry ;

heavily laden waggon of the old type drawn by draught horses moving leisurely, but with a mechanical vehicle with narrower wheels, speedier, and often more heavily laden, severe toll is taken of the road. That is recurring in all cases whereby. roads are being subjected to heavy lorry traffic to-day, and it is n difficult problem for the local body. The lorry owner pays his heavy traffic fee demanded, and pays the extra petrol tax, but while the heavy traffic fee may go in part to the local body, the by-roads receive nothing of the petrol tax revenue. It is contended of course, that the petrol tax serving the main highways, frees other revenue for the district roads, but the petrol tax is distributed only on a subsidy basis, and the local body has to make a dual contribution, while in addition, a. higher standard of road has to be provided and maintained. It would be questionable on close analysis, whether the back roads receive much indirect benefit therefore from the petrol tax, and for that reason there is an agitation in some quarters that some direct percentage should be paid out of the petrol tax for the benefit of improving and maintaining roads, other than highways. However, that does not deal immediately with the present trouble affecting local district roads in bad order as a result of heavy traffic. Where the traffic exceeds the loading of the road classification, the local body has recourse against the persons responsible for the damage.. To enforce this means constant irritation and difficulty, and as often as not the local body becomes the victim in meeting the nuijor cost of the amount involved to restore the road or roads to seemly order. At the same time the local body is well within its rights in pressing for payment for the cost of upkeep resulting from excessive loading and has a duty to perform in that respect to the ratepayers. Millers, carriers, and others concerned in this matter, need not feql aggrieved therefore if the local body takes definite action from now on to enforce the law and see that the regulations are obeyed more closely.