TRAFFIC CONTROL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 88, 23 January 1943, Page 4

TRAFFIC CONTROL.

THE EMERGENCY REGULATIONS.

' COMMENT BY THE MINISTER (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Referring to the Traffic Conti ol Corps Emergency Regulations gazetted this week, the Minister of Transport (the Hon. J. O’Brien) stated that the Traffic Control Corps was set up "last year as a military organisation uzider the command of the Commissioner of Transport. Itl is charged with the function of controlling traffic in an emergency through all rural areas and on the main routes through the smaller boroughs. The corps, which is attached to the Home Guard, replaces the former Emergency Traffic Police. It is organised in companies, each based on an area under the charge of a Transport Department traffic inspector. Each company is commanded by one of these inspectors, who on general or local mobilisation assumes. military rank and is directly responsible to the military commander in that Army area. “Within its particular areas,”, said the Minister, “the Traffic Control Corps would assist tlie Provost Corps in controlling military traffic and would also he responsible for controlling and directing civilian traffic. Control ovei movements of vehicles during an alaim and over vehicle lighting, it an alarm occurs at night, are functions iof the corps. It has a purpose in rural areas very similar to that of a traffic section of the Law and Order branch of the E.P.S. in larger centres. The new regulation enables the Minister to issue authority to any member of the coips, giving him full powers as a traffic inspector. These powers are exercisable only when members are called out on duty ... The statement, said the Minister, was issued with the approval of the Aimy authorities.