CYCLE TRAFFIC

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21908, 8 October 1936, Page 16

CYCLE TRAFFIC

TO THE EDITOB OF THE PBES3. Sir, —It was stated at the meeting of the New Zealand Cycling Federation recently that cyclists want registration. That is quite contrary to fact. If the majority of cyclists are consulted they wiW tell you that they do not want registration, and that they want to be left alone. There is far too much interference with people’s individual liberty. That the registration proposal has been dropped is a jolly good thing. Registration would mean, m many instances, a good deal of hardship, especially in families owning several bicycles, each member of which presumably would be taxed hali-a-crown a year* There are sufficient Pates and taxes of one kind and another without adding to them. Registration would also mean the establishment of an army of inspectors and other bureaucratic officials, and surely there are enough of them already and to spare. The ordinary inspectors can control the traffic and bicycle traffic, as may be seen at intersections in the citjv : M cydists disobey traffic sig-

nals all that is necessary to make them ‘toe the ime” is to make an example of one or two. To prevent the theft of bicycles a by-law should make it compulsory lor every machine to be fitted with a lock, as it is only machines hot so fitted which are stolen, and give so much trouble.

It was- also stated at the meeting that not one Minister was “game enough to enforce the registration of cycles.” That merely shows the common sense of the Ministers.—Yours, etc.,