Lights may tell of black spots

Press, 8 July 1976, Page 6

Lights may tell of black spots

A policy of installing streetlights of a distinguishing colour to mark intersections with a bad accident record, was endorsed by the Christchurch, City Council’s works and traffic committee yesterday. The committee was considering a report from the traffic engineer (Mr M. L. Gadd) in which he said that such marker lighting served two purposes: it acted as a device for route selection and alerted motorists to potential danger. There was evidence that a marked colour change could be effective in reducing average speed. But whether this reduced accidents or was worth the cost would need to be studied further.

He suggested ’ that such lights should be of sodium vapour and restricted to in.-

tersections which had a bad accident record, a history of control-device violation, had bad visability, or were difficult to identify. Very few of the 2000 intersections in the city would justify such installations at present, although the Dyers Road-Linwood Avenue intersection appeared to be an exception.

The Waimairi County Council had a policy of replacing existing lighting with marker lights at intersections as the old lights needed replacing, the committee was told.

Fairlie wins match.— Brian Fairlle. of New Zealand, beat Paul Krouk (Australia) 7-6, 6-4, in a first-round match of the 8100,000 Swedish Open tennis tournament.