MOTOR DRIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 172, 22 July 1936, Page 9

MOTOR DRIVING.

LESSONS AT SCHOOL.

INCREASING IMPORTANCE. BEQUEST TO GOVERNMENT. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) BLENHEIM, this day. "You don't hear of many people being poisoned through bad cooking or of anybody being killed through bad woodwork, but you do read of thousands beintr killed through faulty driving," declared Mr. G. V. Spence, when advocating, at a meeting of motorists last night, that the Education Department should include instruction in traffic regulations and motor driving in the school curriculum. The meeting was held under the auspices of the

Automobile Association (Marlborough), for tlie purpose of discussing tlie growing problem of road safety and measures necessary to minimise, traffic accidents. Tt was recognised, said Mr. Spence, that the schools were doing a certain amount toward making children conversant with traffic rules, but he contended that the instruction would have to go further. Virtually all children now at school would be motorists when tliey grew up. It was essential that they should be given a thorough grounding in the operation of motor vehicles and the observance of the regulations, competence in which was going to become more essential as time went on.

Pupils were already taught cooking and woodwork and similar accomplishments which they might not use in later life, but there was no instruction in driving, which certainly would be useful. It was appreciated by the meeting that youth was the time to learn anything. including motoring, and it. was resolved to approach the Government, through the South Island Motor Union, to include the subject in the school curriculum.