TRAFFIC CONTROL FOLLY

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 55, 29 November 1923, Page 8

TRAFFIC CONTROL FOLLY

INCOMPREHENSIBLE BY-LAWS CITY COUNCIL’S HOPELESS TANGLE (By “Spotlight.”) To-night the City Council proposes to add still further to the hopeless mess in which the by-laws for the control of motor traffic at present stand. Fifteen years ago a set of motor by-laws were enacted. These by-laws have already been amended on eight occasions, and a ninth amendment now comes up for final enactment by tho council.

A great deal is heard, a.nd very properly heard', of the necessity for better traffic control in the , city. The first essential to any efficient control is a plain and understandable set of traffic regulations. With the passing of the new by-laws Wellington will be even further off. than before from having any such thing.

The position to-dav is that a motorist who wishes to observe the by-laws finds it almost impossible to do so—and gives up the task in despair “Spotlight” some time ago inquired at the city motor inspector’s office for a set of the motor by-laws. He expended several shillings in the purchase,of a bundle of some fifteen separate instalments of civic legislation running to about 160 pages, and even then it seemed doubtful at the office whether he was being equipped with a complete outfit. Having received this formidable wad of reading matter, he took it home to study it. In it he found motor traffic rules buried away alongside regulations for the opening hours for theatres, sandwiched in between rules 'Tivr the use of surf boards on beaches, and the license fees for dairies. Nor was this amazing mix-un the end of it. The tangle of amendments that ran through this hotch-potch was soon found to defy straightening out. Amendment Extraordinary. Asa typical sample of the muddle By-law No. 31. of 1918. mav He quoted. This by-law consists of four pages, and is an amendment to “Paragraph B of the Third Schedule of Part Vil of By-law No. 1.” It deals with the charges for hire of expresses—and it is interesting to note, is also re-patch-ed in By-law No. 36. However, obscurely tucked away at the end of it is the following:— 4. Paragraph (a) of Sub-clause (2) of Clause 3 of the Wellington City By-law No. 13 (Motor-cars), 1912 is hereby amended bv striking out the words '‘overtake such tram carriage on the off-side, taking care before doing so to see that the course is a safe one to take or” immediatelv after the word “passenger” in line 8 of vfie said paragraph. This • confusing set of references is naturally found to put a new complexion on the rale for passing tramcars in another portion of the bylaws. In the copy supplied to “Spotlight” someone had noted the amendment with a blue pencil, but anv number of other similar amendments hidden away in odd corners were, not so noted, and the task of putting the whole set into intelligible order would be Herculean.

Eighteen months or two years ago there was talk of the issue of a set of consolidated by-laws, which presumably would, bring the city motor regulations within the compass of human understanding. Instead has come “Bylaw No. 45 Amendment 1923.”" This by-law is another hot-potch similar to those that have preceded it, and its main effect must be to make confusion worse confounded. Its subject matter ranges impartially from stairways round elevators to the ejectment from hotels of people who refused to take a chair when so requested by the licensee. nnd scattered at intervals through it are new traffic rules. Paragraph 18 of the, proposed new by-law enacts, for instance, that “Clause 662 A of By-law No. 1 and Clause 2 of By-law No. 20 are hereby amended by substituting the word ‘express’ for the word ‘motor-car’ wherever the word ‘motor-car’ occurs in those clauses.” On turning up Bylaw No. 1 there is found to be no clause 662 A—it has to be searched for somewhere in the eight amendments. The amendment proves to be in Bv-lnw No. 20. which regulates the, stands for licensed motor-cars—and which by this latest amendment is transformed into a regulation of express stands instead I The unhapnv purchaser of a set of bylaws is left to discover these ingenious transformations for himself. The new by-law is full of such traps from one end to the other.

Another provision worth studying is the following, contained in paragraph 25 of the now by-law:— The third schedule to By-law No. 13 is hereby amended by including within the scope thereof the following streets :— Adelaide Bead The Parade. Isld. Bay Biddiford Street Mansfield Street Rintoul Street Bussell Terrace Constable Street Daniell Street Owen Street Co’-omandel Street Crawford Boad Wellington Boad Moxham Avenue Hamilton Road. Kilbfrnie Cres’nt Onenußoad Coutts Street Childers Terrace Queen’s Drive from liyall Parade to Childers Terrace.

The third schedule of Bv-law No. 13 is found to contain a list of fortysix other streets, to which the above nineteen are added, and a search through this by-lay (itself much amended by others) reveals an amending clause. 713 i to By-law No. 1, containing in sub-section 2 the following provision :—

No person shall drive any motorcar or motor delivery van or ride any motor bicycle at a greater speed than six miles an hour when turning round corners, or at a greater speed than eight miles an hour when crossing any junction or intersection of the streets mentioned in the Third Schedule hereto, or of any street mentioned in tho Third Schedule hereto and any

other street in the city. This provision (unless amended by some clause “Spotlight” has overlooked) relates to sixty streets and their intersections. What the legal pace for motor-cars is around corners and across intersections in other streets “Spotlight” has not succeeded in unravelling from the by-laws. Bicycles and motor-cycles, it seems, have to go at f&ur miles an hour around corners and across intersections, and ten miles elsewhere, while horse-drawn vehicles at a walking pace around corners and across intersections. By what rhyme or reason motor-cycles are allowed to go at eight miles an hour across the intersections in 65 specified streets which are amongst the busiest streets in the city, and reduced to four miles on all other intersections^— that ig to say, the less busy streets —is

but one of the thousand puzzles in Wellington’s by-laws. Many more "instances of the amazing provisions of the by-laws could be given. Tho amendments arc so numerous, however, that it is impossible to feel firm ground beneath one’s feet. Scores, if not hundreds, of these amendments repeal or completely alter clauses referred to only by number, and without a continuous search backwards and - forwards ,it is impossible to know what particular clauses in any by-law stand and what do not. Instead of reducing its present Bedlam code of traffic regulations to a workable system capable of being understood, the City Council now proposes still further to add to the monument it has erected to its own incapacity. Traffic can never be effectively controlled by regulations that no one understands, and the only result must be a go-as-you-please ,system with it£ inevitable crop of accidents.