Traffic Officers And Sunglasses

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31276, 24 January 1967, Page 14

Traffic Officers And Sunglasses

(New Zealand Preet Association? INVERCARGILL, January 23. He took exception to traffic officers wearing dark sun-glasses when they spoke to roadusers, the Southland representative on the New Zealand Automobile Association (Mr C. H. Harvey) told the Automobile Association (Southland) tonight.

“The wearing of these dark sunglasses when speaking to an errant motorist amounts to talking with your eyes closed,” he said. “If someone closed their eyes when I was talking to him, I would feel like taking a swing at him. “Unless there are special reasons why a man must wear dark glasses, they should not be worn when speaking.” It was a question of politeness, he said. “It is becoming the thing to wear them. I like to see the colour of the eyes of the man I am speaking to.” Mr E. Rillstone, the chairman of the association’s general committee, said that it was not only the local men who were wearing the glasses. ‘They (traffic enforcement officers) see it in the films . . . Americans wear them all the time,” he said. “It is not as if the amount of sunlight in New Zealand warranted the officers wearing

them all the time,” Mr Harvey said. Mr Harvey moved that the practice of traffic officers wearing dark glasses be deprecated, and that the Commissioner of Transport be requested to require his staff, as a matter of courtesy, to remove such glasses, unless there were specific reasons why they should be worn. “You can’t see through the black sunglasses, and they are not good for the eyes,” Dr. D. R. Jennings said.