ROADSIDE SIGNS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4923, 8 January 1926, Page 3

ROADSIDE SIGNS.

A BOON TO TRAVELLERS. SOME OBSERVATIONS. Very great improvement hast been made in New Zealand. ,as a country in which to travel during the past year, and a great deal of .the worry on the road has been overcome by the provision of numerous direction signposts. Any motorist who has done any .touring during the present summer and who has not made up his mind to join a branch of the Automobile Association must have a sense of his obligations.. During a thousand-mite trip recently in .the South Auckland, Gisborne, Welington, and Taranaki provinces the writer was. never att a loss as to the right road to take. The yellow or red signboards were found everywhere, and they are reliable and clear.

In many districts there are other signboards, but seldom were they found to be easily read.; nor, in many cases, 'were they satisfactory to strangers, to the locality who did! not know whether the next little township, was on the route he desired to .take or not. The Automobile Association’s signs point the road to the large centres as well as to the small towns on the by-roads. .x

Direction signs are not the only signs erected by the association... On many of the roads every sharp bend is notified; als,o narrow roads and one-car bridges. Other familiar signs are, “Sound Horn,’’ “Drive Slowly/ “Steep Drop,” “Beware of Milk Lorries,” “Beware of School Bus.” "Roadwork in Progress,” “Dangerous Crossroads,” “Parking Place,” “SchoolDrive Slowly,” and "Camping Site.”

The absence of. one of these signs atfer a motorist has become used, to them may have disastrous, results, as the writer experienced through assuming, as there was no warning board, that a bend was an easier one than it proved to be, but a- few omissions. can be’ forgiven when the great benefit of the other, signs is considered. One shudders to think of the accidents there would be with the enormous number of vehicles on the road during the holiday periods. A' class of sign board that is welcomed by travellers is, that giving the name of townships, rivers, lakes, and of nearby sights, etc. In the Tongariro National Park the name Of every little stream crossed is given, as well, as the name of every mountain and dump of busli in sight, and many motorists, must have stopped at the Wanganui River as it comes from the mountain as a small stream that one could jump .across. One of the Taranaki counties has also named the streams crossed. The sign-boards, giving the names of the 'towns are evidently tire work of the local, people as they usually express a welcome to . the town.

One King 001111117 town, which shall be un-named, though it does not deserve Jt, has on the obverse # of its welcome notice board the words “Vour Visit Appreciated. Kia Ora.” As the roads near the town are veiv rough the garage proprietors no doubt appreciate the touring motorists coming to the town.

Sensible sjgns are a boom : foolish sign are a curse, tend to cause a disregard of all signs. On the road from Putaruru to Arapuni there are big signs, “Danger. Hoot and drive slow,” on corners that are so easy that one can see for a long distance ahead.

Perhaps, the worst signs of .the lot are those printed with such small type that they cannot readily be re/'d. A class of sign that should be prohibited, for obvious reasons, is advertisements painted in the colours and shape of the recognised road warning signs, and a class of sign that may have a beneficial effect from the motorists’ point of view is “Slow down’. Road surface bad,” especially if it happened to be erected near the sign denoting the boundary of a named county.

A return of £10,600 for nine months hits been received in heavy traffic fees from the Hutt Road tax (the special tax levied for the laying dbwhi of the bitumen road between Thorndon Quay and Petone). It is confidently estimated that this, may reach £ll,oo'o before the close of the financial year at the end of March.

“Whatever be the cause, there can be little doubt as to the fact that our time is wot producing its quota of great, or even of uncommon, individuals in any field. Many sanguine souls hoped that the war was in some mysterious way, to fertilise talent in the generation that grew up under its shadow. But nearly seven years have passed since the las,t shot, and in no great,sphere of human exertion has any new figure of more than common stature come into sight. On a certain measure, of course, every age is apt .to get this impression, partly because in nobody’s eyesi can there ever be such heroes as the heroes, of his own youth. To-day the accumulating lack of evidence of any fresh crop of originality or power is becoming too serious to be explained by anything temperamental in those-who ruefully witness it. No likely national leader has appeared among politicians of any party; the leading writers, artists, musicians, and actbrsi are still found in the remnant of the pre-war supply, which of course must gradually decrease.”—Manchester Guardian.

“There is a pleasure in poetic pains.”'—Cowper.

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