SAFETY ON ROADS.

Shannon News, 25 September 1925, Page 3

SAFETY ON ROADS.

WHAT AMERICA IS DOING. For quite some time past local bodies and metropolitan municipal authorities have periodically concentrated on devising a means whereby mo* torists would be protected from capsizing over dangerous embankments. In many parts of the Dominion forbidding" curves and embankments have been fenced off, but in numerous instances the, protection so afforded has proved inadequate, to resist a motor car travelling at a fair speed. The subject was brought by a Wanganui Chronicle reporter to the notice of a motorist who, in pursuance of his profession, motors extensively throughout the Dominion and Australia. He remarked that invariably the public was advised of accidents that occurred almost daily, and from a variety of causes. He recalled the disaster that befell a service car recently on an East. Coast road at a very dangerous spoit, a point he was well acquainted with. "it is alleged," he said, "that though this road is. sufficiently wide from a safety viewpoint, the element of danger has always existed there. 1 think the time has arrived when some means of protection should be afforded the travelling public on steep hillside roads throughout the Doiiiiu-ion-jQot that 1 desire to. attribute any form of neglect to the local bodies, but time has so changed the method of the transport of goods, and passengers that a fair percentage is conveyed by motor cars and loraies, and therefore the old-time systems must give place to modern ideas. "To assist in reducing the number of accidents on dangerous hillside roads the simple and inexpensive protection is to erect secure fencing posts on the outer edge of the bluff portions at, say, eight feet apart, supporting a screen of wire-netting of sufficient strength to arrest the car or lorry in its imminent danger-. "Then, again, there is the stone parapet. Such structures could be erected at dangerous points, at an outlay that would not squeeze the purse of the smallest local authority." i The motorist went on lo mention

what is being done in America in this respect. The Americans, never at a loss for a remedy, have been using, and with great success, too, wliai is termed the "Hi-way Guard," which is a wire link construction of the strongest and most elastic fabric. When erected on the edge of a road it stops speeding machines by its elasticity. American highway engineers, he declared, were one in the opinion that the "Mi-way Guard" was the first practical appliance strong enough to stop a motor car, and at the same time stop it so gently that the .occupants were not abruptly hurled over the-side or front of the car. The guard, the motorist concluded, was made of No. 6 gauge wire, twoinch mesh, rust-resisting and galvanised before weaving.