YOUNG TRAFFIC OFFICERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 838, 5 December 1929, Page 10

YOUNG TRAFFIC OFFICERS

PRACTICAL INSTRUCTION FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN

OFFICERS BEGIN TALKS Traffic-mindedness among Auckland’s school children is being developed. This morning, the City Council, alive to the growth in vehicular volume, began the first of its talks to school-children on the traffic menace. Mr. George R. Hogan, chief traffic officer of the City Council, and Air. E. Scholes, his assistant in the new movement. addressed children in Koliimarama, St. Ileliers and Meadowbank schools this morning on faults in negotiating thoroughfares and necessary safeguards against accident. This afternoon, the officers will visit Remuera and Epsom schools. They have before them a programme of visits to 23 schools and they expect to be able to address children at five schools each day. The value of the instruction to children has been recognised with the Auckland Education Board, which is co-operating with the traffic department of the City Council in arranging for the addresses. The proposal is to give a practical demonstration of street safeguards by means of traffic lines traced in school playgrounds. The lines have already been put down at some schools, but it was not possible, in the wet weather, to give practical instruction at most of the schools today. Even when confined to a short talk on precaution in the traffic, the advice is highly valuable. In the schools visited today, the teachers agreed to appoint senior pupils to carry on demonstrations of traffic movements in the school-grounds for the benefit of younger children. U.S.A.’S PRECAUTIONS

Air. Hogan suggested the instruction to the City Council in 1925 and the plan received approval then. An endeavour was made to secure specimens of lectures delivered in schools in the United States on traffic dangers, but it was found that the American instructors gave original lectures to the children. In the United States, officers are employed in regular positions as instructors to children on traffic precautions. America, too, in the major cities, stations traffic officers outside schools. Although this plan has been brought to the notice of the council, Auckland is not considered to have reached the stage where this precaution is necessaiT. Traffic-mindedness in the community is what is sought by the councirs department. Auckland lias unusual traffic problems and there is no doubt that the present talks to children, which will probably be carried out systematically three times a year, are necessary. A valuable development is the interest of the children in carrying out demonstrations on their own. FLAGRANT FAULTS In their addresses, Air. Hogan and Air. Sclioles warn the school children against practising the present faults of playing in the streets with trolleys, ignoring rule-oi’-the-road directions, omitting to use pedestrian lanes at street interesections, failing to take advantage of safety-zones and attaching bicycles to motor-cars. Correct methods of signalling vehicles and passing them, the safe method of walking in traffic and the manner of alighting from trams and buses are carefully explained. Although the traffic features presenting most danger are usually obvious there are flagrant breaches, frequently attended by accidents, each day. It is because of the more acute need for, protecting school children that the instruction has been instituted. Air. Robert A. Laidlaw is a prominent citizen who has been active in advancing the work.