The Off-side Rule.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 252, 30 August 1928, Page 7

The Off-side Rule.

NOT A SOLUTION. Method Obsolete in America.

(By Motus). That the off-side rule, or the giving of precedence to traffic approaching on one’s right-hand side, is obsolete in America is something that I was not surprised to read of a few days ago. The thing always seemed to me to be a particularly stupid rule, inasmuch as it gave to traffic on littlefrequented side streets the lead over that on a thoroughfare roaring with traffic. At about the time the regulation came into force in New Zealand—maybe just before or just after -—I was motoring into Hamilton from the Cambridge road. When passing one of the quiet side-street intersections before one gets to the rather historic tree on the comer turning into Hamilton East, I got the shock of my life as a great fruit-truck dashed right across the main road at a speed of at least thirty miles an hour, as far as I could judge. To avert a disastrous collision I had to swerve sharply round to my right and up the side-street the lorry came out of, finishing on the footpath between the trees and the fence line.

Now, according to the offside rule, that lorry driver would be in the right, but you will never get me to believe that it is even reasonably safe, or in any way equitable that main thoroughfare traffic should all have to go slow and keep a look-out all the time to give preference to the comparatively few entrants from the right out of innumerable side-streets. The thing is a farce, and it is unfortunate that New Zealand has adopted a worn-out and discredited system.