WITHOUT PROSECUTIONS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 290, 7 September 1928, Page 9

WITHOUT PROSECUTIONS

AUCKLAND MOTORISTS PLEASED. That traffic officers can educate motorists to observe by-laws without running them to the police courts is being demonstrated in Auckland, according to the motoring contributor of the “Sun,” who writes:— “The centre of Albert Street, once a favourite parking area, is now free of cars all day long. This remarkable change has been accomplished without a single motorist being prosecuted. Mr. G. R. Hogan, chief traffic inspector, laid it down from the first that he would not prosecute until the motorists of Auckland had an opportunity of learning the new by-laws. “The regulation came into force on July 1, and during the past two months traffic inspectors have patiently “tagged” every car left standing in the centre of Albert Street. A record was kept of the cars tagged, but it was found that the little hint was sufficient, the motorist remembered the next time. The successful inauguration of the new parking regulations is the success of education over the old method of prosecution.” Apropos of the above it is interesting to note that an Aucklander motoring through to Wellington recently in the course of some notes supplied to the Auckland “Star” ou his return remarked on a difference in the attitude of 'Wellington’s police and traffic inspectors towards the motorist as compared with Auckland’s. He said: “Staying in Wellington a few days I noticed that the police and traffic inspectors were not like our men. They seemed more inclined to bully than to assist a strange motorist. I should like to see all traffic inspectors in New Zealand come to Auckland to study the methods of Mr. Hogan’s staff, the same as the Continental police go to London to study the methods there.”

Is this correct, we wonder, or merely an exhibition of local patriotism by a patriot from the peerless Queen City of the North, where the only way to do is as Auckland does?