DRIVING ON NEW ZEALAND ROADS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27246, 13 January 1954, Page 3

DRIVING ON NEW ZEALAND ROADS

Comment By English Motorist “I FEEL SAFER ON A SPEEDWAY ” (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, January 12. Mr Ken Wharton, driver of the 200-miles-an-hour B.R.M. racing car, feels safer on the world’s speedways than be does driving on New, Zealand roads. He said tonight that he had had two “near-misses” while motoring in Auckland today. Local motorists were “frightening him to death”; he was being “shattered” by their hand signals. * “People put their hand out of the driver’s window in a sign remiffiscent of the Hitler salute,” he said. “What does it mean? I have seen them stop, turn right, turn left, go round—in fact do everything but go backward. “At home we are accustomed to a woman driver putting out her hand to turn right, then turning left; but this multi-purpose signal of yours is the cause of great confusion. Half the drivers stop, then put up their hands.” Mr Wharton added that the tendency of New Zealanders to drive in the middle of the road was puzzling. Coming back from Ardmore on Saturday he could have driven all the way to Auckland on the left of' the line of traffic.

After a week’s holiday in Auckland, Mr Wharton will exhibit the B.R.M. at Hamilton, Rotorua, New Plymouth, and Wellington. It will then be taken by air across Cook Strait to compete in the 100-mile Lady Wigram Trophy race at Christchurch on February 6. From Christchurch Mr Wharton will return to England by way of Tahiti, Honolulu, and New York. He expects to be home by Easter, in time for the start of the big racing season.