LIGHTING-UP TIMES

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 83, 4 October 1930, Page 24

LIGHTING-UP TIMES

Sunday .......... 6.30 p.m. 6.31 p.m. Tuesday 6.32 pan. ■ Wednesday ...... 6,33 p.m. Thursday' ....... 6.34 p.m. {Friday 6,35 p.m.

It is taking motorists quite a long -time to realise that the law is for the law-breaker, and concerns the ordinary well-behaved citizen but little; A motorist who habitually exercises,care and reason in everything relating to ears and their operation need not trouble himself very greatly about the law; he is not likely to come into serious conflict with it. Those who do not exercise earevand reason are always—consciously or unconsciously— at conflict with its, requirements, and should, therefore, not: be surprised or aggrieved when forced to pay the penalty.

fairness is no concern of the law as between the offender and offender. Thousands of thefts are committed in the course of a year in which the :>thief gets safely away with the '■ proceeds. Were this not the case thieving would quickly be a thing of the past. The same is true of housebrealtirig and every other kind of crime. .British com-' .inanities will go to the limit Of trouble •to sheet home a murder, but .even in this most serious of crimes Britain is almost unique. It is ■ commonly s:aid that there are 10,000 murderers walking about in freedom in the ~ United States of America. The\-'concern •of v .v the law is to catch iiot to make a point 6t ■■ first catching the worst offender and then coming down the scale so that all may lie treated according to the heinousness of their offence, or call everything off.

It" is" a little comical, therefore, to note the complaint raised at t the Canterbury Automobile Association's meeting that a speed trap had been operated

jrm the day of the second Test match ■ against the English Eugby team. Such ; p. complaint will get nowhere, either ' with; ithe traffic authorities' or the ■gehr. eral;public, >vhiph':,latter is commonB?nse 'personified.' The suggestion'that a trap cannot be efficiently operated is no doubt perfectly true; that is, it Ja impossible on such a day to catch every speedster, and most likely by no means the worst* of them. But this is quite beside the point. The trap eau be operated efficiently enough to. catch the speedsters and sheet the offence home. One man may bo doing 50' miles an hour and be caught, whereas a man ahead doing 60 gets off scot free. The first offienco is none the less for that, and the penalty is just. The crime is not in being the 'fastest and most dangerous,.driver on the road, but in being too fast for safety, and in all due respect to" the complainant at the Canterbury Automobile ; Association it cannot be too strongly stated that such. a day as the second Test match against" the British Eugby team is just the very kind of day when "speed-copping" is moßt required and just the kind of day ■when the perialty against offenders (should be most severely inflicted insubl sequent proceedings. One might almost as well suggest that Mr. Morrison should patrol the Hutt road only when' nobody worth talking about is on. it— when a mistake is impossible—and keep clear at rush times, particularly race idays and days of Test matches against somebody or anybody, all because he Snay catch. some and not be able to patch others, or ■ possibly might cn1 and hold up an innocent one. , If motorists were rushing along four fcbreast as was alleged at Christchurch, the more prosecutions tliat follow the better. It will, be .hard to persuade; ;fce'ssonable people that, the police .werel "making a mistake, and it is unlikely in the" extreme that a motorist driving safely under such conditions would be the one the stop-watch would pick upon. Of course, it might. The writer of this column holds no brief for the "speedtrap"; it is not particularly efficient, lather the reverse,* but the authorities must have some method of control, and the speed-trap is one'of the few that' are financial! practicable. _The mounted constable is a restraining influence rather than a "cop"; he can deal with only one offender at;a time, and may Lave to chase him for miles before Saiicsiing him. The trap works on a latg«r scale so far as prosecutions are concerned, 6a4 most race days should be followed by prosecutions. They would be preferable to collisions; prosecution after^collision is somewhat late in the day as ai-estraiacr.

such control would be possible, even if desirable.

"The worthy ancestors of the present inhabitants, or at any rate- those of them who served on town-pianning commissions .when the cities-of the land were first being laid out, evidently wbrlced on tho 'principle' that no corner was a real corner unless it had at least sis streets leading from it.

"Another penchant of theirs was to have a street suddenly branch off in three directions, resulting in the phenomenon of "making one stream of traffic, grow where three grew before. In consequence of these facts there are few towns in England that . can institute mechanical traffic control systems that do not presuppose on the part of the driver an intimate acquaintance with Einstein's theories of space, time, and light. THE SOUL OF COURTESY. "But Robert can do what no product of the machine age has yet been able to do. Ho can, simultaneously, sort out and reassemble five streams of traffic, inform Canadian or United States tourists where the nearest American bar is, console a small and tearful child: who had ,beeu lost, and preserve '.'a'■•'■ cheerful." smile) S He can admonisli a wayward motorist without being rude (United :' States papers please copy), and can help an aged charlady aeross'.the street without any offensive >' patronising airs.. Above ; all, without becoming in the,, least confused or ceasing to direct traffic,-he can'give the' most explicit directions in the minimum number of words to the motorist who pauses beside him. ■ :

"'Fourth turn to the right, then third to:the left,- and straight on under the ..bridge.'?... • '■■'.■-■■■ •

"These were the words of a Manchester constable on point duty to the author's party one busy summer noon in the heart of the business district. We proceeded to carry them into effect, but, owing to our trans-Atlantic stiff-neckedness, we got ourselves hopelessly lost. When we came to the