International Motoring

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31114, 18 July 1966, Page 1

International Motoring

The trend for Automobile associations and kindred clubs to cater for members on

as widely reciprocal a basis as possible wherever they travel, and however they travel was one of the outstanding impressions gained by Mr E. S. Palliser, general manager of the Automobile Association (Canterbury) in the course of an overseas study tour.

Motoring in the jet age was truly on an international scale, he said last evening. Mr Palliser returned to Christchurch yesterday after spending 15 weeks studying the services given to members by automobile associations throughout the world and traffic developments generally. He made his studies principally in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe, but visited 17 different countries and discussed his interests with representatives of more than 30 motoring clubs and organisations. He also represented the New Zealand Automobile Association at a one-week conference of the Alliance Internationale de Tourism in Washington. Mr Palliser said that the automobile associations in New Zealand had, for many years, provided many services to assist motorists with international travel, such as the issue of international driving permits, Commonwealth reciprocal service cards, and documents to facilitate the international movement of motor-vehicles.

“Motoring organisations throughout the world have not unnaturally extended their services into the realm of travel itself.”

Mr Palliser said that motoring clubs in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe had shown phenomenal growth in membership, but few had achieved the penetration of the New Zealand association with a 60 per cent membership ratio to car registrations. Automobile associations had been longer established in New Zealand than they had in many other countries. The Automobile Association (Canterbury), with its 63 years, was two years older than the AA. of Britain. Mr Palliser said that overseas subscriptions were at a more realistic level than those of New Zealand. The present subscription of £llos in Canterbury was one of the lowest in the world. Britain had recently raised its subcsription to £3 3s and at that was also one of the lowest. Outside New Zealand it was almost the universal practice for the subscriptions to be fixed by the council or management committee of the organisation. Mr Palliser said that no-

where else in the world did he find anything comparable with the New Zealand National Roads Board and the National Roads Fund, which were created in 1954 largely on Automobile Association advocacy.

“The fund receives the bulk of motorist taxation for exclusive use in highway construction and development. This is the envy of most overseas countries.” Mr Palliser said pedestrian subways had been adopted with outstanding success in many places in Europe and any fears he previously had on what they would look like were dispelled by what he had seen in Munich and Vienna.

In these cities pedestrians descended and ascended on efficient escalators. The subways housed attractive shops and restaurants and achieved the major purpose of segregating pedestrians from vehicular traffic. Underground car parks in many big cities satisfactorily coped with thousands of cars without spoiling the beauty above ground. In Britain he found consternation at the imposition of a 70 miles an hour restriction on motorways. Compared with the 55 miles an hour in New Zealand this seemed very reasonable. "I am convinced that graded maximum speed limits might be the best

answer to a controversial issue,” Mr Palliser said. "While in the United States I found the whole country aroused over the need for building greater safety into automobiles. In the last week in Australia I found the same agitation there. “It appears that the Australian Road Safety Council unanimously supports proposals from Victoria demanding Federal legislation for certain safety features to be built into cars. It is a world trend,” Mr Palliser said. Mr Palliser said that after his overseas visit he was more impressed than ever with the adopting a master transport plan. “In one or two major cities where this has not been done traffic grinds to a halt at peak periods. A solution is being sought long after the pro* blem has arrived,” he said.