Bad Roads Cause Enormous Waste

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 329, 14 April 1928, Page 1

Bad Roads Cause Enormous Waste

HIGHWAY SOUTH STATED TO BE IN WRETCHED CONDITION The Great South Road from Auckland to Hamilton, which is as important to the Auckland district as the railway, is in such a state that no one who uses it can be found to say a good word for it. thousands of motor-vehicle i” owners are using it every week, and while thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pounds are being poured into State road funds by the motorists, the Auckland outlet roads yemain in a wretched and dangerous! condition. Those Aucklanders who could go southwards and travel on the roads from New Plymouth to Wellington and Napier during Easter returned disgusted at the potholes, corrugations and loose rough metal, of the Auckland-Hamilton road, which is one jof the most used thoroughfares in the pominion. Somewhere in the vicinity of 60 Service cars travel over the road every day, while the number of private and commercial vehicles runs into hundreds. The weekly bill on all these road-users for tyres cut to pieces and broken springs is enorpiOus. TYRE DAMAGE One Auckland carrying firm has four light lorries on the AucklandHamilton run, each doing one return trip every day of the week, or a total of just under 4,000 miles for the four vehicles weekly. The firm is finding that It is cutting out a set of tyres on each vehicle in less than a month. Under normal circumstances it expects a set of tyres to last three to four months. “About a quarter of the trip is over loose crushed metal with jagged edges that simply cuts the tyres to pieces,” remarked the firm’s chief driver to The Sun. “Our lorries get over it safely with only damage to tyres, but it is absolutely dangerous for private cars that have ..not the weight. "No attempt is made to roll or bind the metal, and it Is just raked or graded back to do more damage.” The driver described the bad condition of the road for two miles each side of Huntly. He has also made gome pointed remarks about the conditions between Mercer and Te Kaliwhata. He admitted that a considerable hmount of work was being done on portions of the road, but the condition of the remainder ruined any of the effect so gained. Mr. Grey Campbell, who is wellknown in motoring circles, told The Sun that he went to Hamilton recently and on the way counted 21 Vehicles in trouble with tyres, springs or mechanical trouble due to the continual jolting on the road. Mr. Campbell was particularly critical of the amount of rough metal, and the size of it. In fact, several motorists agreed with Mr. J. Park, of the A.A.A., who said the road had never been worse, comparing its present condition with that of the road in 1897.