WELLINGTON TRAFFIC.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 261, 2 April 1914, Page 2

WELLINGTON TRAFFIC.

POLICE CONTROL. SOME "ODD CONSTABLES." . Visitors to Wellington nowadays might bo tempted to perpetrate the time honored observation that "its getting more like London every day." Wellington streets are narrow and her trailic brisk, and some time back the civic fathers agreed to a proposition for contributing towards the upkeep of a force of constables to do "point duty" and discourage the übiquitous motor driver from coasting along the wrong side of the street to the peril of the timid pedestrian. As a result there are now seen in the streets of Wellington where the traffic 19 thicHest the vunn in with lifted hand, parting the traffic into two orderly streams, and balking the impetuous individual who desires to slide round th<j corner on a wheel and a half.

Generally speaking, this system has met with the cordial support of both pedestrians and drivers. Prosecutions for breaches of the traffic by-laws have been fairly common in the Wellington court, during the early days of the system especially, and that these first fruits have not been in vain is evidenced by the greater measure of safety with which one can cross at even such busy points as the junction of Manners and Cuba streets.

It was at this point, however, that an incident came under the notice of a News' representative recently, which culminated in an interesting point of law being raised in the Magistrate's Court, when a chauffeur for a Wellington medico pleaded not guilty to having failed to take the left side of the road in negotiating the corner in question. The question was then raised as to Whether the policeman on point duty was compelled to move out of the way to let a car pass, and the defendant's employer, when in the" witness box, j waxed eloquent in his indignation at I the failure of the man in blue, to do so. "Odd constables at street corners," as he scornfully designated the controllers o? the traffic, were busybodies wlio considered it infra dig to be civil. In this- case liis chauffeur was following tihe tram track, and the constable, although the street was clear demanded that ho divert his car from its natural course. This he refused to do. The information was finally dismissed, the magistrate remarking that although a technical offence had been committed, the constable might have moved aside. Meantime, the "odd constables" in the streets continue to do good service to pedestrians and others.