Speed Limits On Main Roads

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26987, 12 March 1953, Page 8

Speed Limits On Main Roads

The Transport Department seems determined that its right hand should not know what its left hand is doing. While still pursuing its campaign—which it has waged with some success over many years—to persuade the drivers and riders ot motor vehicles to keep their speed down, the department is taking other measures which seem designed

to speed traffic up. It is now in process, it seems, of abandoning the right-hand rule in favour of compulsory stops on the approaches to main roads, so that main-road traffic may soon have the legal right to cross intersections in built-up areas at a steady 30 miles an hour. A paragraph from the Wellington reporter of “ The Press ” towards the end of last week suggested that the department proposes to go further. The department has recommended to the Minister (Mr Goosman) that the Road Safety [ Council be asked to suggest j “ whether the whole question of the I “ 30-miles-an-hour limit in built-up ’ “ areas should not be reviewed It | is explained that “ the problem ” has • arisen because of the growth in • • recent years of small suburbs on the [[outskirts of cities and settlements ! along main arterial routes, all of [which insist on the 30-miles-an-

hour limit. There is no “ problem ” here—unless it is the problem of reconciling the department’s longstanding and proper interest in safety with its new and disturbing interest in speed. The department has always insisted that 30 miles an hour is a reasonable speed limit in built-up areas; and most members of the public will agree that it is. Here the motorist must be on his guard not only against the errors of judgment or the carelessness of other mature drivers, but also against the unpredictable -action of the child who rushes on to the street after a ball, the elderly person who steps on to the roadway from behind a parked car—in fact, the countless possible and probable mishaps of the highway that runs through settled areas. Part of the price that must be paid for closer settlement is some slowing down of traffic—or the price will be exacted in an increased toll of death and injury. The source of the agitation for raising the speed limits has not been disclosed; our reporter merely learnt that “ it had “ been represented to the depart- “ ment that motorists travelling long “ distances on main roads were con- “ tinually being slowed down by a “ succession of small built-up areas The Minister will be wise to ask for i stronger reasons than this before • initiating the review proposed by his officers.