The pell-mell pursuit

Press, 14 November 1984, Page 16

The pell-mell pursuit

“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail, “There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.” The Ministry of Transport intends to come to the aid of porpoises, whitings, and other companions of the Walrus and the Carpenter this week in a manner worthy of Lewis Carroll. As part of a “speed blitz” in Canterbury, slow travellers holding up traffic will receive just as much attention from traffic officers as the speedmerchants exceeding the legal limit. The argument runs that slow drivers are a source of frustration that can lead to dangerous overtaking. According to the chief traffic officer in Christchurch, Mr B. Thackwell, slow drivers could be liable to fines for impeding the reasonable flow of traffic or for driving without consideration.

The emphasis seems misdirected. Provided that slow drivers keep as close as practicable to the left — as indeed all drivers should, whatever the speed at which they travel — the annoyance cannot be all that great. It is when slow drivers hog the centre-line, or straddle lanes effectively blocking both of them to prudent motorists, that they become a hazard to themselves and to others. The offences here, surely, are a failure to keep left or a failure to

drive entirely within a lane, and they concern speed only incidentally. Attention to these failings will enhance traffic flows as much as any crack-down on cautious or. unhurried motorists who are observing all the rules but whose speed, because it is five or 10 kilometres an hour below the allowable maximum, is not fast enough for the helter-skelter brigade. Many things besides slow drivers are a source of irritation and frustration on the roads, and some of them are more clearly in breach of the law than a driver who does not travel everywhere at the maximum legal speed. Drivers who fail to signal their turns, cyclists riding without lights at night, and jaywalking pedestrians are a few examples. In none of these examples can the resulting annoyance be allowed to become the excuse — or even the reason — for dangerous driving. Motorists who cannot curb their tempers in such circumstances are the real problem, not the “Sunday-driving, grandmother” who seems the inevitable target of the campaign. There is, and always must be, a place on the roads for drivers who wish to travel as fast as the law allows and for drivers who prefer a more leisurely pace. Nothing decrees that all should be part of the same pell-mell pursuit.