TRAPS FOR MOTORISTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4954, 22 March 1926, Page 3

TRAPS FOR MOTORISTS.

f . REVENUE FOR. LOCAL BODIES.

TRAVELLER’S COMPLAINT. “There appears 'to be a determined. effort -on tlje part .of many local bodies in New Zealand to make ie.venue ,at the' expense of motorists, and my experiences during the past few- months have -led me Jo believe that the matter ~df traps and speed limits is so organised that it is prat- ' tically impossible for a travelling ' motorist to avoid being fined.” Thus a well-known Pfilmerston North motoriet summed .up his experi- , ences while on a motor tour of the South Island recently. ,In many of the North Island boroughs, he explained, ajl kinds of >, speeds traps were evolved with the apparently express purpose of making , money out of motor-car owners, and he instanced the fines' collected by a number of bodies recently. ’ “Bad as'masters are in the'North,” / he added,' “they are infinitely worse in the South, wh;ere 'a motorist loses all .the joy of travelling in trying to comply with many of the .absurd speed l-jmits imposed. In'some towns the speed limit is fifteen miles an hour. After travelling .through open country a man drives' into a township and (suddenly finds' that here, for no real reason, the limit is ten miles. He has not been forewarned .and ebn- , sequently falls into the trap laid for him, and is fined in due course. “I am told that in Lawirence the limit is s,even miles an ;hoUr through the Now is’nt that absurd.? You find that praicticaily every town has .a different idea df what constitutes a safe speed, and as that seems to vtttfy from seven to thirty miles, per hour, the motorist often has, to trust to. luck in, the matter of speed as he does not become aware of the local restrictions until it-is too late. "It appears to metha,t local bodies are straining every effort to make money at the motorist’s expense, and something should be done to put a stop; to spch unfair treatment.”