TRAFFIC CONTROL ATTACKED

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29791, 6 April 1962, Page 9

TRAFFIC CONTROL ATTACKED

“fpRAFFIC control in this A country is like the Portuguese Navy, as the saying goes—too many admirals," says an editorial in the latest issue of “Beaded Wheels,” the quarterly journal of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand. “The multiplicity of road traffic laws and regulations and the organisations enforcing them in New Zealand leads one to question whether some simplification should not occur,” the editorial says. Achievements "Far be it from the Vintage Car Club to challenge such august bodies as the automobile association, road safety councils and other similar outfits as to genuineness of their concern for

the motorist., but, if the last 20 years is any criterion, can they fairly say they have achieved very much to make the life of the motorist any easier in terms of simpler laws, freedom from irksome restrictions and excessive taxation both direct and indirect? “What is needed is a radical codification and simplification of traffic laws and penalties, and a vesting of control in one competent body "Do you know who makes the traffic laws? Or who makes them worse, should we say. Just look at the complex heterogeneous mass

of provisions in the Transport Act 1949 and its amendments. Take Section 31 as an example—look at the amendments—no ordinary motorist could hope to comprehend them. Mes

“Look at the mass, or mess, of signs, directions, hieroglyphics and markings plastered over telegraph poles, posts and on the streets. How many of them are valid at law, how many of them make the slightest impression on the motorist, and how much do they cost him?"