"DRIVE QUIETLY."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 22, 26 January 1935, Page 7

"DRIVE QUIETLY."

PARK ROAD TRAFFIC.

CITIZEN'S APPEAL.

MEN WITH STANDARDS.

Tired of waiting for the proper authorities to act, a private citizen has taken his own means to abate the noise of traffic in Park Road, which he has become convinced, during long experience of hospital visiting, is detrimental to the welfare of patients in the Auckland Hospital. He is employing two men, one to stand at the corner of Grafton and Park Roads, and another to stand near the corner of Domain Drive and Park Road, each holding a standard bearing the following legend:— HOSPITAL— THINK OF THOSE INSIDE. MOTORISTSDRIVE QUIETLY. These standards, each surmounted by a white cross on a circular red ground, "'ere displayed for the first time this morning, and their originator was highly gratified by the response. Park Road ■njoyed its quietest Saturday morning for years. Motorists and drivers of commercial vehicles slowed down when they read the notices. There was consequently less need for them to use their horns. There was less squealing of brakes and skidding tyres, and bodies rubbing on tyres at the eurve in Park Road,.and less rumbling of lorries and rattling of their cargoes.

This is what patients and doctors have been praying for during many years past, but their prayer has not yet been heard by the civic powers. One citizen, however, has been courageous enough to niake a single-handed appeal to the makers of noise, and generous enough to do it at his own expense. That it was thoughtlessness rather than callousness that caused so much unnecessary suffering is shown by the response to his 'ppeal, unsupported by any penalty for 'S»fi#'ng it.