Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1939. MAKING THE ROADS SAFE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 March 1939, Page 6

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1939. MAKING THE ROADS SAFE.

AT the half-yearly conference of the North Island Motor Union, held, in Wellington on Thursday, well-warranted emphasis was laid upon the value of road safety propaganda and upon the desirability of promoting and maintaining continued activities in that category. Very recent, experience has provided impressive evidence both of the great value and effect of an intensive road safety campaign and of the deplorable increase in fatal and other accidents that is Hable to occur where standards of care and consideration by road users fall away.

An enterprising road safety campaign no doubt was largely responsible for a noteworthy reduction in fatal and other accidents in January last, but in February, as the Minister of Transport pointed out not long ago, more lives were lost on the roads than during any of the previous six months, including December and January, when holiday traffic was at its peak.

The great point upon which attention should be fastened is that earnest and well-organised efforts to promote load safety have proved to be highly effective. There cannot be any doubt that by sustained and comprehensive action it is possible to cut. down permanently the incidence of road accidents. T.he amount of expenditure needed to finance a vigorous and continuing road safety campaign throughout the Dominion is not very great, and there should be no question of allowing financial difficulties to impede or hold up this very necessary national enterprise. Whatever may be the best method of raising the funds required, it is certainly not unreasonable that, an inconsiderable fraction of the amount of money that is being on the improvement of roads should be devoted to establishing the highest possible standards of safety in the use of these same roads.

While a definite call is thus made upon motorists and others as individuals, it. is evidently not less incumbent on national and other public authorities to do what in them lies to make the roads safe. A serious failure on the part of the. Railways Department to honour this obligation was criticised as it deserved to be at the conference oT the North Island Motor Union. V ith every justification, members denounced the action of the Department in placarding advertisements, not only on hoardings along the Hutt Road, but on overhead bridges crossing that highway. Besides being unsightly and disfiguring, these ’placards, in the extent to which they attract the attention of motorists, undoubtedly cut down the margin of road safety. Motorists who allow their eyes to be drawn to hoarding and bridge displays along a busy traffic highway cannot but endanger their own lives and those of other people. The danger is particularly apparent where the placarding of the bridges is concerned. As a member of the Motor Union observed : If the advertising matter on the bridges was of any value, it. derived its value from the motorist taking his eyes off the road to read the advertisements.”

The strong representations that are to be made on this particular matter have every claim to consideration from the standpoint of road safety as well as on aesthetic and other grounds. The whole question of road safety in all its aspects must be given serious, methodical and sustained attention if accidents involving death or injury are to be reduced to a. practicable minimum. Recent experience gives every ground for confidence that well-considered expenditure upon a comprehensive campaign directed to that end will be a highly profitable and satisfactory national investment.

A REFUSAL TO SEE.

A GREAT modern philosopher has said: ‘‘To be is to be perceived.” The attitude of the British Prime Minister (Mr Chamberlain) towards the events that are now shaking Europe points to a belief on his part that things that are unpleasant and disagreeable cannot exist or come into existence if he refuses to perceive them. Tt seems impossible to account on any other ground for Mr Chamberlain’s dignified and resolute refusal to bring a charge of bad faith against Herr Hitler. In his speech’ in the House of Commons on Wednesday, the British Prime Minister sot forth plain evidence that Herr Hitler, and Germany under his leadership, have been guilty of the crudest and most indefensible bad faith. The Munich agreement (Mr Chamberlain observed) constituted a settlement which was accepted by four Powers and Czechoslovakia of the Czechoslovak question. It provided for the fixation of the future frontiers of Czechoslovakia and laid down limits of German occupation, which Germany accepted. Germany now, without, so far as I know, any communication with the other three signatories at Munich, has sent its troops beyond the' frontier then laid down. Even though it may now be claimed that what has taken place occurred with the acquiescence of Czechoslovakia, I cannot regard the manner and methods by which these changes have been brought about as in accord with the spirit of Munich Mr Chamberlain here demonstrated conclusively that even if extravagantly unwarranted allowances were made for Germany, she must si ill he held guilty of an indefensible breach of faith. Instead, however, of accepting and expressing the conclusion made inevitable by his own statement of the lads, he made a merit of refusing to accuse Herr Hitler or Germany of bad faith, and accused them only of not having acted in accord ‘‘with the spirit of Munich.” Tn its staggering inadequacy, thisrebnke, if it was a rebuke, recalls a once-fambus nonsense verse, here quoted from memory: When Grandmania fell off the boat, And couldn’t swim and wouldn’t float, Matilda just stood by and smiled—--1 almost could have smacked the child. The mild benignity with which Mr Chamberlain regards what even he is constrained to call a departure from the spirit, of Munich might he admired if one could forget the fate of the unhappy Czechs, betrayed and enslaved as a nation, and with thousands of their boldest spirits already being hustled off to concentration camps; and if it were possible, also, to ignore the perils to world democracy that are entailed in looking with bland vacuity on extending international crime. Bringing these factors into account, however, Mr Chamberlain’s indicated attitude can only be regarded as falling appallingly short of what is demanded of a British statesman in an hour of supreme emergency.