H.—4o.
D. PUBLICITY AND ADULT EDUCATION. During the, period of this report publicity and adult educational activities were carried out as follows :— Films. —Very extensive use was made of road-safety films during the year. This form of propaganda involved no expenditure of overseas funds, and demonstrated very vividly the lessons of sound driving technique to many thousands of civilian and military drivers. Whenever possible the films were shown to members of the A.S.C. going overseas, and were received with considerable enthusiasm. Programmes at military camps were interspersed with special war news-reels and general entertainment films. In conjunction with automobile associations and. local bodies, programmes were shown at many agricultural and pastoral shows during the winter months, and attracted considerable interest. The films have also been shown at a number of meetings of the Home Guard and Emergency Precautions Organization, and numerous requests have been received for their display during the forthcoming year. rosters and Leaflets. —Every endeavour has been made to conserve stocks of paper by refraining from the issuing of new posters and leaflets. Existing stocks of posters and many thousands of leaflets have been distributed. Screen Slides. —Extensive use has been made of this form of publicity, which does not involve the expenditure of overseas funds. Prior to the Easter holidays, an extensive campaign was run in the theatres. Radio.—The Department is indebted to the National and Commercial Broadcasting Services for their valuable co-operation in broadcasting safety slogans, especially before periods of heavy holiday traffic. Processions. —The Department assisted in many processions organized to raise funds for patriotic purposes. Press. —Excellent co-operation was received from the press in the publication of appeals and articles. Automobile Associations. —The automobile associations gave every assistance in the distribution of safety materials, and generally in improving by education the standard of driving on the roads. Windscreen Transfers. —Many thousands of " I Drive Safely" windscreen transfers were distributed, especially in country districts. Churches. —Co-operation was given by the churches in the delivering of appeals against recklessness on the roads. Wrappers. —One hundred and sixty thousand safety wrappers were issued. Race Traffic. —A special appeal to race traffic was continued throughout the year. Pedestrian Education. —Valuable experiments were carried out by the Psychological Laboratory at the University of Otago to test the beliefs of pedestrians regarding their visibility at night. It was found that pedestrians almost invariably overestimated their visibility, and this applied even when the pedestrians had had considerable driving experience. These experiments have been of considerable local educational value, as many of those participating were tcachers. The results are also being used for general propaganda purposes. Army Department. —In addition to co-operation in the extensive showing of films at military camps, the Department has also assisted in the safety education of military drivers by making available the driver-testing machinery brought from the United States for the Centennial Exhibition. These machines are being used to test reaction time, steering ability, visual acuity, binocular co-ordination, ability to resist the adverse effects of glaring headlights, speed of recovery from these effects, fidelity of vision and peripheral vision. Motor-cyclists.—Liaison has also been maintained with road safety committees of motor-cycle clubs. E. ENFORCEMENT OP TRAFFIC LAWS BY THE TRANSPORT DEPARTMENT. (1) General Enforcement Work. During the year ended 31st March, 1941, the Traffic Inspectors attached to the Department covered over 990,000 miles in the course of their patrols, issued verbal or written warnings for 38,000 offences, weighed 7,000 vehicles for suspected overloading, and tested 7,200 people for drivers' licenses. Comparative figures for the previous year were 53,000 verbal or written warnings issued, 7,000 vehicles weighed, and 6,100 people tested for drivers' licenses. During the year 7,491 of the more serious offences were reported, against 9,579 in 1939-40 and 10,435 in 1938-39. (2) Traffic Offences Bureau. Full details of the results of the year's operations under the scheme of traffic offence notices and a central bureau are set out in Table No. 6. Of the total number of offences reported to the bureau, 5,060 prosecutions were authorized, 2,172 warnings issued, and no action taken in 259 instances, For the previous year 1939-40, 7,244 prosecutions were authorized, 2,024 warnings issued, while in 311 instances no action was taken. (3) Prosecutions. Table No. 7 shows the results of the 6,032 prosecutions actually taken during the year. Convictions were obtained in 5,758 instances and fines totalling £7,688 were levied. In 165 cases the information was withdrawn before the hearing, while 108 cases were dismissed. In the previous year fines totalling £10,355 were levied in the 7,449 cases where convictions were obtained, while 122 cases were withdrawn before the hearing and 111 cases dismissed,
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