MOTOR SPEED LIMITS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3019, 6 April 1926, Page 3

MOTOR SPEED LIMITS.

A STUDY IN CONTRASTS.

The commissioner of police at Rhode Island, America, has issued an order that motor-cars must travel at least 35 miles an hour or withdraw from the roads. The good folk of Hastings, England, are endeavouring to secure a 10-miles speed limit along the sea front, writes Mr. Gordon Fraser in the London Daily Express. Possibly the idea is to assist the Town Council to collect revenue, but in any event it is a retrograde step which, if carried into effect, w_ould seriously affect the prosperity of the town. Hastings would suddenly find itself suffering from a motorists’ boycott. This is one of several similar applications made since the end of the war to the Ministry of Transport for a reduction 1 of the speed limit. A careful watch is being kept on the present move, and if the Minister holds a public inquiry the motoring organisations will attend and oppose the application. One would have thought that in these days even a borough with ideas runuig back to the days of William the Conqueror would realise that the arbitrary imposition of a speed limit does not ensure safety for anybody. Motorists are confidently expecting that all speed limits will be abolished by the bill that is to be introduced to Parliament this session, and that penalties will merely be confined to dangerous driving. At worst it is hoped that a 35 miles an hour speed limit will apply to the open road. It is generally admitted that the present 20 miles an hour limit is an anarohronism. It certainly does not do what it originally intended to do, and to extend the same principle in a more vicious degree is a most retrograde step. When trains were first introduced it was announced on the best authority that it would be impossible for human beings to move at more than 25 miles an hour and still live. To-day aeroplanes do more than 200 miles an hour, and a mo-tor-car has done 150. But apparently Hastings is not prepared to take any risks.