CARE IN STREETS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 143, 17 May 1940, Page 4

CARE IN STREETS.

Regulations shortly to be brought before Cabinet provide for the prohibition of the use of motor-liorns in built up areas, except in emergency, between the hours of 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. The purpose of this, according to the Minister of Transport, is to minimise the risk of accidents by encouraging motorists to drive by sight rather than by sound, and it has the blessing of the motor organisations. It is also the Department’s intention to discourage the excessive use of motor-horns during the hours of daylight. The Minister might, have added another reason for the proposed regulation—the avoidance of excessive noise in streets during the night, and even in some places during the daytime. Complaints have been made over a lengthy period regarding the absurd use of motorhorns at night, especially in the vicinity of hospitals where the sick are frequently disturbed. The human organism, it is said, does not get used to noise, and of the three great “healers,” pure air, sunlight and silence, the last is not the least. In normal times London and other large provincial centres in Britain have a period of silence from 11.30 p.m. to 7 a.m., and it has proved of remarkable benefit to a sorely harassed public who have enjoyed freedom from the clanking of warning devices on motor-vehicles, freeing the night from the cacophonous noises that made it hideous. Paris and Rome also forbid the use of motor-horns during parts of the night. The experiment proposed by the Minister of Transport will be watched with interest, as a means of making the streets safer, and for its effect on reducing' noise in the cities.