Man and the Motor

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 119, 13 February 1926, Page 15

Man and the Motor

Bird’s-eye Glimpse of Civilisation’s Latest Problem

In a recent issue of the “ New Statesman” Mr. R. E. Davidson presents an interesting survey of the immensely difficult traffic problem created by the widespread and ever-increasing popularity of road transport by motor.

WE have inherited (salys Mr. Davidson) a road system which developed clumsily and automatically from an ancient network of parish cart and bridle tracks. Narrow’ ways twist and wind to avoid obstacles which have ceased to exist or offer no problem to modern engineering. The view' is perpetually blanketed by buildings and hedges and coppices. Even narrower ways impinge upon these absurd roads by means of blind entries and screened angles. There is no law of precedence giving rights, for example, to fast through traffic over the local carter conveying mangolds from a clamp on one side of the main road to sheep in a field on the other side. The great arterial roads, 100 ft. in width, which lhe British Ministry of Transport has been constructing of late years, indiqate the kind of highway which fast transport requires. Yet. even these roads bristle with danger zones, due to ancient vested interests, which the communitv cannot afford to buy out. Some of the older highways have been tinkered up, but not one of them is vet a logical construction. Drivers, who gain the bulk of their experience on these broader roads, penetrate at holiday season into the prehistoric lanes of the .more picturesque counties, where the ratable value does not permit reconstruction. They often fail to modify their driving methods to suit such roadways; and so the deathroll rises. The vested interests which obstruct a thoroughgoing modernisation .of the road system include the resident, whose manor or cottage juts its angle against the highway; the tiader, whose shop front ought to be shifted 40ft. backwards; the pedestrian, the perambulator, the cyclist, and the handcart, all of whom might safely share a modern highway with the gig, the landau and the haycart, but are anachronisms in a vortex of motor traffic, and require their own tracks.

Expenditure and legislation are clearly indispensable to the modernisation of our road traffic. Pending such radical reorganisation as is ultimately inevitable, the common sense, self-restraint and mutual consideration of the community must be very heavily strained. For any logical and complete scheme, neither the money nor the consent of the public are yet available. But strong interim action is indispensable. The minimum death roll may be higher than most people are prepared to beliejve. How many readers of this article can give offhand the weekly casualtv lists of the railways, the ships, or the mines, or would fail to be horrified if thev knew these figures. It is our business to keep the list of road casualties as low as possible. In America, during 1924, 19,000 people were killed and 450,000 injured in automobile accidents. A little lethargy may place the motor vehicle alongside cancer and consumption as one of our chief killers. America, certainly, owns far more cars than we do; and she encourages them to travel fastsome of her lowhung public service charabancs are openly scheduled to cover 450 miles in ten hours. Her new roads are better than ours, her old roads much worse. But her appalling casualtv list warns us how a great nation may be caught unawares in such matters.

Five parties are plainly involved in the necessary reforms: the road engineer, the motor engineer, the motor driver, the non-motoring road user, and the Government. The road engineer has been handicapped by lack of funds, and his bands will remain shackled for many a long day. He has given us dustless roads. In other respects he is not particularly progressive. He tolerates dusky surfaces, which throw no silhouette shadows at night and so entail dazzling lamps. He wholly fails to visualise the perils of skidding His roads are- appalling shortlived, his most expensive constructions disintegrate, with amping rapiditv. The motor engineer has done well. The modern car can be stopped so abruptly that its occupants will be jerked out of their seats; he has made road transport dependable,

swift and cheap. The drivers, contrary to a common prejudice, are mostly excellent. There is no higher testimony to the adaptability of the human animal than the rate at which old and young alike develop into really clever, handlers of projectiles weighing upwards of a ton, capable of travelling at sixty miles an hour, and used under conditions barely adequate for the stage coach. There is, of course, a percentage of fools, some of whom are criminal fools; but the percentage is creditably small.

The non-motoring road user deserves immeasurable sympathy. The first and second generations of the three which now bold the stage grew up to regard the public roads as their playgrounds. They were accustomed to bowl hoops and play at ball in the fairway. Their descendaints still legally possess these sacred rights. Arrived at adolescence, we were free to cross the roads as, when, and where we pleased, to drop parcels and pause to pick them up, to meander along the road centre and admire the scenery. It is injudicious to follow’ such pursuits nowadays, but they are still entirely legal. Moreover, these legal rights are respected by motorists, whether private owners on pleasure bent, or wearv lorry drivers concluding an eight hour day or commencing an eight-hour night. The driver may hoot on _ rather a raucous . instrument; he may scowl; lie may occasionally mutter an oath over his shoulder. But he .-slows down, and waits or swerves. Similarly, in tire purely rural areas, Hodge has always allowed his horse to take the too of the camber, secure in the knowledge that there would be plenty of time to pull aside when another cart rumbled into view. He has always pulled up alongside another cart when he met it, in order to discuss the weatlier or the crops, with the road completely blocked. Time will undermine these customs and illusions, probably within a generation; and then the law will step in at last; but law cannot run ahead of consent. During the interregnum conditions must remain extraordinarily trying for everybody, and the casualty list is likely to be formidable. What palliatives are possible? Driving tests are useless, for the personal safety factor is mental, and it is not practicable to treat each applicant for a driving licence as the Air Force treats would-be pilots; and even the Air Force (egrets a percentage of its acceptances. Vindictive punishments are dangerous, for it is often difficult to apportion the blame except in unmistakable cases of drunkenness: and a neurotic man, involved in a nasty crash after half a pint of ale at lunch may so easily pass for intoxicated. We must spend every available penny on modernising our roads. We want light-coloured, waterproof, nonskid surfaces, and anti-dazzle devices. We want a definite law of precedence at road junctions, enforced by suitable signals. Instead of the humble constable reducing local rates by means of traps on safe road sections, we want expert traffic supervisors with large powers, who will watch the driving at awkward points, and inspire the necessary action. On certain selected roads— chiefly the new arteries—the vested interests of pedestrians and other forms of slow traffic should be reduced or even abolished, suitable alternative provision being made for them. Road crimes need sifting by especially capable judiciaries; and clear cases should be punished so severely that no man will lightly err. We arc rapidly developing into a nation of motorists. When the country lad buys his motor-cycle two years after leaving school, motoring has ceased to be a class issue. Within a verv few years the necessary public consent for logical motoring legislation will be eagerly given; and only the financial aspects will continue to be anxious. And when at last'we can fold cur arms and claim that the problem of the road is solved, and the deathroll reduced to a national minimum, posterity will perhaps be facing a new set of transport problems created bv aeronautics.