THE “JOY” OF THE ROAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 400, 14 July 1928, Page 10

THE “JOY” OF THE ROAD

BEING THE LAMENT OF AN AUCKLAND MOTORIST

The joys of motoring- are not unalloyed, nor are there present indications that they are getting any nearer to that state of perfection. It might be said that what the motorist makes on the swings he loses on the roundabouts. Many improvements to roads, and the promise of more, together with the general improvement in cars and their performances, are offset by multiplicity of taxes and regulations so numerous that even those who make them scarcely “know the half of it.” Someone recently remarked that the motorist of to-day is but the pedestrian of yesterday, and one is tempted to wonder how many have attained that happy state, and how many, for that matter, have returned to the ranks of pedestrians. What with the increasing number of cars, lorries, service cars and buses on the roads, petrol taxes, drivers’ licences, speed limits never in conformity, traffic police—and now the suggestion that in addition to the annual waste in renewing number plates (and paying in a pound at the same time) there should be a. special sum for third party insurance—motoring is not what it was. Pity the poor 'fellow who aspires to join the ranks of car-owners. First he has to select the car and go through the business of finding a deposit and arranging insurance. That over, you may think he is entitled to enter his car and let someone drive it home. IS r ot so. Not having a licence his first call is at the registration office, and if it happens to be the time when all cars are being re-registered he will not be able to secure even a form, at the usual office. Having peered under the bonnet, and thoroughly inspected the car from all angles—unless the salesman happens to have supplied him with details—the owner finally emerges with the number of his engine and chassis and particulars as to horse-power, seating capacity, and make and number of wheels—not including spares. He then decides what the car is going to be used for, after which he gets a number plate of a colour that probably does not suit any one of the two or three tones the car is painted in. Having progressed so far his next business is to secure his driving licence the simplicity of which depends both on the ability of the driver to learn to handle his car and the wisdom which he displays in his choice of an issuing authority. If he is honest he goes to an authority and gets a licence that his drivingability justifies. If his ability is questionable he makes use of some small out-of-way authority and becomes one of the army of “dud drivers,” many of whom it" will be his deserved fortune to meet, later, on the road. Having surmounted all these trials the motorist takes the wheel and an enthusiastic family—or friend—to see things' that they have probably seen hundreds of times before, and almost before he is out of the gate he learns two things. The first is that he is the only one in step when it comes to giving and understanding signals, and that the traffic officer does not always mean what his hand says, so to speak. He is likely to have an early experience of being asked whether he happens to have his driving licence with him, and he then learns that a car is not the only essential to the freedom of the city • streets. He must possess a licence to have the car on the road, and another to drive it. However! these, and many other things, he learns by hard, and sometimes ignominious, experience. He will not be long on the road before he will realise that yet another annual payment is almost a necessity, and h© will probably be a good motorist and join up with the A.A.A. After that he gradually becomes more or less conversant with differentials and pinions, floats and floatbowls, cotter-pins, crank-shafts and bearing surfaces, pre-ignition, and no ignition at all: not to mention punctures. repair shops and suitable language for directing at the fool who cut that corner. Tn fact he becomes a motorist. Pity him 1 —H.C.K.