rationing the 'most attractive’

Press, 18 February 1980, Page 7

rationing the 'most attractive’

PA Dunedin Petrol rationing is the most’ ij attractive conservation measure having the least effect on road accident tolls, according to Mr W. T. White, a research officer in the Ministry of Transport “If every driver' could be restricted to 18,400 km a year it would make no difference at all to .80 per cent of drivers, yet total vehicle kilometres would be cut by 24 per cent. “This picture is. not much changed if driving on business, is exempted,” Mr White said, in a paper presented to the Institution of Engineers’ conference in Dunedin. Mr White was one of several engineers emphasising conflicts between road safety and possible petrol conservation measures at the transportation section of the conference. His .comments were based on a survey of 6169 New Zealanders aged 15 and over. Banning cars with more than 1350 cu cm engine capacity could result in a 13 per cent petrol saving. Mr White said. But it could also increase the road toll. An analysis of the survey showed that drivers Of cars up to 1000 cu cm

are nearly six times more likely to be injured more severely than drivers of larger capacity cars involved in an accident. Although cars of more than 3500 cu cm were found to be the safest they were not much safer than cars between 2001 cu cm and 3500 cu cm. Mr White said two possible conclusions were Small cars are dangerous beause they offer less protection; or. large cars are dangerous because they demolish smaller cars in a collision. Banning motor-cycles would save 2360 injury •accident involvements a year, 14 per cent of the total, but it would also lead to an estimated 1.5 per cent increase in petrol consumption, Mr White said. Raising the driving age had also been suggested as a way of conserving petrol. While petrol would obviously be saved, as it would by arbitrary restrictions on a segment of the population, the evidence: was that' the accident problem would merely be postponed to a later age, Mr White, said. Imposing a traffic curfew would have more value in saving accidents

than petro, since 14 per cent of all injury accidents occur between U p.m.- and 4 &.m., but only 2.3 per cent of all distance is driven during that period. While petrol rationing solves any conflict between conservation and safety, in practice it created many, difficulties, “A subtle , blending of price rise and rationing” could provide a solution, Mr White said. He suggested setting a high car registration charge to discourage the buying .. of cheap cars for the purpose of obtaining extra petrol coupons. Each car owner would receive several sets of petrol stamps when he registered his car. The stamps would be colour coded and could be used to buy petrol at' widely differing prices. Petrol could ■be bought without stamps, but only at a very high price. Car owners would be legally entitled to sell stamps, but the availability of “higher petro 1-price” stamps would set a ceiling on “white market” prices.