CYCLISTS’ DEFENCE

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 230, 26 June 1935, Page 5

CYCLISTS’ DEFENCE

Registration Scheme HUTT ROAD “UNIQUE” The recent advocacy by Wellington motorists of a scheme for registering bicycles with a metal number tag at a small yearly charge was replied to yesterday by Mr. A. E. Milne. New Zealand “Consul” for the Cyclists’ Touring Club, when approached for the cyclists’ view. He remarked that past New Zealand experience in registration indicated that this was not practical, and that the criticism yf the conduct of Wellington cyclists in general was unnecessarily selfish. “By-laws for registering bicycles have been passed at Auckland, Wanganui, and, I think, Thames,” he said “In all of those places the scheme has been found to be unpractical. The number tags on the frames of the bicycles are to be seen still at Auckland, but in the proportion of about 50 to every 1000. Lower Hutt considered putting the idea into effect, but actually turned it down.” Prosecuting Offenders, -i Mr. Milne said he could suggest no alternative method to prosecution of combating the practice of giving fictitious names and addresses stated to be carried on by a large proportion of cyclists when approached by a traffic inspector for breaking a regulation. Iu such instances, he said, he was all in favour of every means being taken to prosecute the offenders. “It is not fair to criticise all cyclists for the offences of some of them —to criticise adult cyclists for the offence of the boy who rides recklessly in the city and breaks the white-mudguard, reflector or other regulations.” Mr. Milne was caustic in his condemnation of the rule preventing cyclists riding on the Hutt Road. “It is the only stretch of road in the Empire that is not free to cyclists,” he said. “If a pedestrian chose to he could walk whenever he liked along the middle of it. In the whole of England there are only three and a half miles of cycle track, and even in those places it is not compulsory to use them. The ‘Daily Herald’ not long ago conducted an inquiry among its readers on the subject of whether they' preferred riding on the track or the road, and 80 per cent, of the answers favoured the road. Hutt Road Privilege. . “Personally, I ride along the Hutt Road, although not on the bitumen,” he 'continued. “I held a test case on riding on the bitumen in 1925, but the decision was given against me. I rode on the bitumen for a month before I was pulled up by an inspector, and I rode along it for four months after that up to the date that my defended case was decided. “It was amusing to see the other cyclists’ puzzlement when at that time I rode along the road aud passed the inspector regularly, with him each time saluting me. Some of the others tried to get away with that, but they did not have my advantage of being, as it were, sub Judice, and they were promptly pulled up and lined.”