The road toll

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32587, 22 April 1971, Page 12

The road toll

Sir,—l cannot agree with the impracticable suggestion that persons under 25 should not be allowed driving licences. The 10-year gap between the school leaving age and the suggested driving age would be an unjustified one as many working people, in that age group, require an efficient means of transport which could not otherwise be provided. The problem lies not with a definite age group (statistics disregarded), but with the careless attitudes adopted by drivers that have deteriorated into a mental state of self-concern.—Yours, etc.,

B. A. ROSCOE. April 20, 1971.

Sir, —The Ministry of Transport’s enforcement staff —obviously too thinly spread have to contend continuously with the three great life and road wreckers—overspeeding, overloading, and imprudent overtaking, the last frequently practised in criminally culpable circumstances, as every “defensive driver” will have observed on scores of occassions. I’ll bet Mr Garriock would like to be able to station a traffic officer and car with roof-blinker at three-mile intervals along every State highway and motorway within his jurisdiction; I’ll likewise bet the safety, record would improve instantaneously and spectacularly. And can not we just hear the almost human shrieks of anguish that would emanate from that section of good old fiercely competitive private enterprise not unrepresented in the transport industry trying to defend the few remaining rights of a long-suffering public, always being increasingly pushed around by an overgrowing plethora of unbelievably extravagant bureaucrats? —Yours, etc., DAVID KENNEDY. Rotorua, April 21, 1971. Sir, —Except for strengthening enforcement procedures we need no new traffic laws until there is a sincere effort to deal firmly and consistently with the people who are breaking the present ones. If the Minister of

Transport said he was at his wit’s end, I am sure this was just a figure of speech. He knows what he is doing.— Yours, etc., JIM ABELSON. April 21, 1971. [This correspondence is now closed.—Ed., “The Press.”]