WANTED, SIX TRAFFIC INSPECTORS. Apply Wellington City Council.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 204, 28 May 1904, Page 6

WANTED, SIX TRAFFIC INSPECTORS. Apply Wellington City Council.

INSPECTOR Doyle, who, in addition to his other duties, is possibly expected to direct the tiaffic from the tram terminus at Newtown to the Hutt Road, is not furnished with seven-leagued boots. Ho has no Aladdin's lamp, and his eyes, although pretty good of their kind, have not a range exceeding four miles. In his report to the City Council last week he remarks that "if the traffic is to be regulated, and proper supervision exercised over chivers, the services of oi-jre th m one man will be required." ♦ * * The police have said that they have no instructions as to the direction of traffic, and it is apparent from the expression of Mr. Doyle's opinion that, up to the time he had stated it, the City Council had not given the matter a thought. Here is the position • Wellington is the busiest city in New Zealand for wheeled traffic. It has also the narrowest streets It has the sharpest turns and most sinuous windings, as well as a set of horsedrivers who have the utmost contempt for the rules of the road. It has also a traffic inspector who hasn't any time, seeing he has many other duties besides spreading himself over a distance of four miles m order to take care that drivers don't kill people or collide with cars. * * The electric cars are going to run withm the present year. They will enormously increase the danger to pedestrian and vehicle traffic that now exists Has the Council made complete arrangements whereby the safety of the public may be assured? Has it engaged a special staff of inspectors, whose sole duty it shall be to worry careless drivers into decent driving ? Is there anyone besides Mr. Doyle to look after the congested street traffic? No notices to drivers to "walk round corners" are shown Nobody gets fined for driving off-side. What is the Council going to do about it when the electric cars run ? It is time the public knew. Is it going to' let the drivers of Wellington run the traffic, or is it going to appoint a corps of men to see that it a run safely ? From day to day we read of train accidents in Auckland, Christchurch, and Dunedin — cities where the traffic is infinitely better handled than in Wellington, and where the roads are broader and the drivers less devil-may-care and ignorant. We await the appearance of the Council's advertisement calling for six men — preferably of the bull-dog breed — to regulate the traffic of the city that at present knows no tiaffic law.