Auto Gossip

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32215, 6 February 1970, Page 11

Auto Gossip

by

All The Same 1 was amused by the recent comments of an Auckland economist, who said the Government should try to encourage all New Zealanders to drive the same sort of car, and that a large part of our road-safety problem was that we were trying to run many efferent sorts of vehicle on the same road. I doubt that he was serious, but can you imagine a man with a family of six, for instance, requiring the same sort of car as a single man? Or a person who drives only in the city requiring the same sort of vehicle as a traveller making long trips with a large cargo of samples? Economically, standardisation to this degree makes some sort of sense, but to take the argument to its logical conclusion, we should all live in exactly the same design of house, wear exactly the same clothes, and eat the same food off exactly the same sort of crockery. Mixing Traffic

One might tend to dismiss the second part of the comment, about road safety, as equally ridiculous, but it does deserve a closer look. Although it can never apply to private motor-vehicles, there is no doubt serious road hazards are created by mixing vehicular traffic with cyclists and pedestrians. In Britain, experiments in separating cyclists and pedestrians from vehicles have been made in some new towns, and the reduction in accidents has been dramatic.

As traffic becomes much more heavy in the years ahead, there is little doubt we will have to find some way of getting pedestrians from one side of the road to the other without crossings; indeed, some way of keeping them off roads altotogether. It is already realised that pedestrian crossings across major multilane roads can never be really safe, and that pedestrian malls completely free of traffic ere likely to be a major feature of cities of the future. Bus Routes Much can be said for some routes or lanes restricted to buses only, for in spite of what the bus protagonists say, there is no doubt buses cause serious congestion because of their size, large turning circles, and the essential stop-go

A.J.P.

nature of their running. It is obviously difficult or impossible to organise a smooth, uninterrupted traffic flow when large vehicles are constantly having to pull in and out of the traffic stream. But it is equally obvious that buses play an important part in transportation, and must be provided for. Delivery Problem Again, there is the question of mixing large delivery vehicles with other traffic, and as has been found in major cities overseas, inevitably a time comes when deliveries other than in private lanes must be restricted. Even now, double-parked trucks in Christchurch often cause congestion, particularly on one-way streets, where they frequently reduce traffic to one lane—for a time negating a major advantage of the one-way system: a smooth flow of two lanes of traffic. In other areas, some truck drivers do nothing for the carriers’ cause by double-parking where it is quite unnecessary, frequently within feet of one or more empty kerbside spaces. And when trucks are double - parked on opposite sides of the one street, as is quite common in Colombo Street, Sydenham. the traffic flow is seriously impeded.