RESTRICTIONS ON CAR LIGHTS

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23366, 27 June 1941, Page 3

RESTRICTIONS ON CAR LIGHTS

REGULATIONS NOT YET IN FORCE STATEMENT BY TRANSPORT • COMMISSIONER The moTor-car headlight restrictions will not ■be enforced in Christchurch or in any other part of the Dominion where they .apply, until the necessary signs are erected. This was made clear by the Commissioner of Transport (Mr G. L. Laurenson), when he was asked by telephone yesterday to comment on the statement of the Christchurch Reduced Lighting Controller, Mr E. Hitchcock, that the restrictions were now in force and had been in force since last Monday. Mr Laurenson said that it was entirely incorrect to say that the restric-tions-had been in force since last Monday, for the reason that the necessary regulations had not been gazetted until yesterday (Thursday), after they had been signed on Wednesday. They were certainly not gazetted on Monday, and any action taken then against motorists over the restrictions would not have been enforceable. "We are not enforcing the restrictions until the signs are erected,” Mr Laurenson said to "The Press.” “I said that when I was in the city last week, and that stands, even although the regulations empowering action have now been gazetted. If the signs are not erected, the regulations are not enforceable. In any case, the restrictions were definitely not in force on Monday, as the Gazette notices had not then been issued. Until the Gazette notices were issued, that was to-day, naturally the restrictions could not have been enforced. We want motorists to comply with the regulations as soon as possible, and that means immediately, if they can, but the restrictions could not have been enforced on Monday, as Mr Hitchcock says.” Mr Laurenson said that - it would have been possible to enforce the restrictions from • yesterday, following the gazetting of the regulations, but it was definitely not proposed to enforce the; until the signs were up. As had been reported after his visit to Christchurch last week, the South Island Motor Union and the Automobile Association (Canterbury) had agreed to undertake the erection of the signs immediately. ~ , Mr Hitchcock’s statement, published in “The Press” yesterday, was in reply to one published on the previous day by the Automobile Association, Canterbury, which stated _ that as > the association would not be in a position to erect the signboards op the boundaries of the headlight restriction areas for about a week, motorists would be given a few more days in which to have their lights adjusted. Mr Hitchcock, in reply to that statement, said that the association’s statement was unfortunate, because it threw some doubt on a position over which there was previously no doubt. He said that the regulations had been gazetted to come into force on' Monday, that the Commissioner of Transport had confirmed their coming into force on that dav, and newspaper articles had made it clear that the necessary adjustments to motor-car lights had to be made by that day. ■