Motor Union President Discusses Drinking Hours

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28702, 27 September 1958, Page 11

Motor Union President Discusses Drinking Hours

Although it might appear to be the antithesis of road safety and good behaviour, the automobile associations in New Zealand might do worse than urge more liberal hours for drinking, the newlyelected president (Mr G. W. Ferens, of Dunedin) told the South Island Motor Union 1 conference in Christchurch yesterday afternoon.

This definite conviction had Come upon him suddenly in North America, when he had asked motoring and law enforcement officials about the problem of the drunken driver.

‘‘They just gaped at me,” Mr Ferens said. “They did not admit the problem. They were at a loss to understand our anxiety in New Zealand until they questioned me about drinking hours. There is no 5 to 6 p.m. hog-wash in the United States. There are no bars in our sense. But there are pleasant restaurants where men will take their wives and families and drink there. You can't take bottled drinks away from, these places. You have to go to a bottle store, and 1 had to get a licence to buy there. Drinks are available up to 2 a.m. in many places. But I did not see a drunk during the whole of my trip, nor did I read or hear of a case of drunken driving.”

Mr Ferens said he was convinced that all this arose from reasonable hours for drinking outside working hours. In a large photographic enterprise, employin 26,000, as far as he could ascertain, not one was in the habit of rushing off to drink immediately after work. “But they do drink an awful lot of an international beverage, available from slot machines. School Driving Uriving lessons in most schools, supplied with cars by motor and oil firms, was a major reason for the high standard in the United States, Mr Ferens said. Officials of the Automobile Association of America admitted frankly that the standard the youngster achieved was better than most older professional drivers. The most vivid impression of his travels in Canada and the United States was the importance of traffic engineering, Mr Ferens said. It was a large profession in America with officers attached to most state arid local authorities, and also to most automobile clubs. These men really knew their job. They knew even the width of Princes street, Dunedin, his home town. Their job covered town planning, traffic, signals, timing of work and movement, signs, bus Stops, stop signs, and many other matters. Town planning was included because this was now built round the traffic systems in America Traffic Engineers “If your people won’t spend the money on traffic engineers they will always have traffic problems,” these men told Mr Ferens. The best example of their work which Mr Ferens saw, was in Ottawa. The trans-Canada highway was going right through the

federal capital. It involved moving the two major railways and providing for 60,000 vehicles a day. Working from 1 a.m. to 10 p.m., six machines abreast (each carrying 30. yards) were moving at 25 miles an hour bn earthworks, with a foreman checking their times by stop-watch. Then another single road-making machine laid a solid carpet of concrete (“the first expense is the last”) which was then covered with bitumen.

Jay-walkers, Rubbish New York had stamped out jay walking since August 8 by fines of two dollars for one step off the kerb, required on the spot. Mr Ferens said his daughter had nearly had a fit when he threw a carton out of the car on an open roadway in Canada. There was a fine of 100 dollars for this, and in the cities there were fines of 25 dollars for throwing down a cigarette packet/ “It has certainly cleared the streets of jay walkers and rubbish,” Mr Ferens said. In Ottawa, a fine of one dollar for every minute over parking limits also got results. The best car parking he saw was in Detroit, with four floors underground—down by spiral track and up by lifts. “You cannot get out till you pay at the turnstile.” Off street parking, expanding everywhere, cost anything from five dollars an hour in the heart of New York to a dollar an hour, in most other places.

Petrol was not- sold by the gallon but by the dollar’s worth. The common purchase was three dollars’ worth or eight gallons. This system saved bother with change.