Motor Traffic Laws May Be Tightened Up

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1004, 21 June 1930, Page 1

Motor Traffic Laws May Be Tightened Up

COMMITTEES ADVICE TRANSFERENCE OF CONTROL From Our Resident Reporter WELLINGTON, Today. Marked changes in the administration of the traffic laws in the Dominion aro likely to follow in the train of the committee of inquiry into motor accidents, which has just completed its sittings. Greater restrictions and more fines for motorists will rule if the Transport Department submits to the Minister of Transport, the Hon. W. I’.. Taverner, anything like the proposals which have been endorsed by representatives drawn from the whole community. Perhaps the most " striking thing about the conference was the complete victory won over the local bodies, many of whom have been shown to have lacked zeal in administering the existing transport laws. The whole question of the machinery of enforcement is now open for revision, but it is understood that the conference recommended that this be taken out of the hands of the municipal bodies and entrusted to the police. Along with this goes a recommendation that the whole of the motor regulations, some of which have been dormant and in disuse. should now be applied to practical life. The conference, after a three days* session, decided by a large majority to indicate that the time had come for more rigid control of motor traffic. Motorists’ representatives present agreed that “enforcement” must be the motto of the administration during the present period of rapid growth of motor transport. Education of both the driver and the pedestrian is what the Commissioner of Transport may regard as his principal task in tf:e future, and this task is made the easier by the fact that the necessity for the course has been recognised by the most competent tribunal in the Dominion.