NO HOOTING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 256, 29 October 1934, Page 6

NO HOOTING.

Hostile critics of motorists, are many, and they are not always confined to people who do not drive themselves; motorists who hold that they have been inconsiderately treated by other drivers have been known to express' themselves with great vigour on lack of road sense and road manners (says the "Manchester Guardian"). But the system of silent night driving has now spread from London to all other built-up parts of the country, and the first experience of the change must have convinced even the most hostile critic that, on this point, at any rate, when motorists are given an order they do obey their instructions implicitly. Testimony is agreed that hornsounding dropped to nothing during the prohibited period of Sunday night and Monday niorning—and the change is not one that can be made or accepted without conscious and continued effort on the part of road users. Drivers have immediately and obviously tried to apply the new ruling; pedestrians, too, must have realised the greater need for caution which the absence of the warning by horn now imposes during the night hours. Only time can show whether the experiment leads on to safety as well as silence. It can hardly do so unless silent driving continues to mean slower and more cautious driving. And the effect on people who drive both by day and by night has also to be considered —will they become ■more chary of using their horns during daylight as well, and what would be the attitude of the police and Courts towards such a development? In the meantime there has already been one rather ironical result of vastly diminished horn-sounding—an added appreciation of the fearful clamour created j by the mere progress of the ordinary electric | tram.