MOTORDOM

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 225, 19 June 1936, Page 15

MOTORDOM

-A

Charris

DISCIPLINE NEEDED FOR THE CYCLISTS

A Touring Club Member Objects To

Criticism

In a few discursive notes last week dealing with the intentions of the Minister of Transport so far as traffic generally is concerned, the suggested tightening up of the control of cyclists was touched upon and full-heartedly commended. That approval has drawn tire from Alfred E. Milne, Cyclists’ Touring Club, who wrote to the editor of "The Dominion” on the subject. His letter acts as the stimulus for a little plain talking on the question of cyclists.

In the previous article it was said: “And if, in the teaching (by the Min-" Isler) it means a light, bell, brake, white rear mudguard, red rear light, and keeping to the left, then the Minister will have made a bound forward in traffic sense.”

Mr. Milne says that I might have added a reflector. “Surely,” he says, "we need that in addition to a red rear light and a white rear mudguard i” Precisely. The idea of a rear reflector was entirely overlooked. Of all the safety devices necessary on the rear of a bicycle none is more so than a rear red reflector, because if rear red lights are compulsory fixtures there will be no guarantee of their efficiency, and it' a light fails the reflector will do its job if it is efficient. Roar red light, whited guard and red reflector; all are necessary because lights sometimes fail, red reflectors are useless if affixed at anything else but at right angles to the roadway, flapping coat-tails may, and do, mask both, and at least the whited surface, if it is white, will at least remain to be seen.

If Mr. Milne takes the trouble to look at the rear reflectors of the bicycles on our streets of owners who are, or are not, in his touring club, be will observe that 99 per cent, of them are at’an angle that precludes of any useful office. Perhaps the members of the club have all the gadgets enumerated on their machines. I have not seen the touring club members in action, but I can hardly think that the squad of riders with numbers on the seats of their pants last Saturday making for the Hutt Road were members, because I did not notice a single rear bicycle fixture, even a guard to be painted white, and no signals of hand or bell were given when meeting, passing or crossing traffic. They would not be members.

Again, out on Paekakariki and other hills on a Sunday one observes cyclists scorching downhill or pushing a bicycle uphill in the middle of the road, or on lesser slopes zig-zagging from side to side in the track of traffic. They would not be club members.

Or out on the highway in daylight or dark one observes cyclists, some of them girls, pedalling along with a hefty knapsack or other bundle resting on a bracket or the guard where the reflector or light ought to be. They would not be members of the touring club.

And those cyclists who provide a basket on the rear guard to house a baby or a hound. They would not be members of the club.

Cyclists who double-bank (that is, allow another person to ride on the bar), cyclists who ride three, four and five abreast on lhe roads; cyclists who refrain from giving signals by hand; cyclists who ignore traffic officers’ signals; cyclists who duck and dive at speed among vehicles and barge into pedestrians; cyclists who disregard the necessity of bell, light or brake; are they the members of the touring club? if they arc not they should be, because they all need the disciplining corrective which such a club should inculcate.

It should be Mr. Milne’s purpose to support, the introduction of safety devices for bicycles, and not to seek to ridicule the efforts of those who are striving to protect the cyclists, particularly the younger ones, from the danger to which they are exposing themselves on the public thoroughfares of the Dominion.

If the members of the touring club and cyclists generally will not realise that they are units in the traffic plan; if they will not realise that they have a duty toward pedestrians and other road users; if they will continue to travel in the middle of roads: if they

will not realise that following and oncoming vehicle riders or drivers are entitled to know their whereabouts on the roads —then the Minister of Transport who cannot, unfortunately, give them the brains to apply the elementary law of self-preservation, can at least force them by legislation to provide gadgets which will assist other road users.

.Mr. Milne says that mere registration can hardly expect to teach the eyelist “his proper place.” He says that motorists have been registered for years, and it has taught them nothing. Obviously Mr. Milne does not know the purpose of registration, and if the members of the touring club know no more they are all floundering in traffic ignorance. Registration has certainly taught the motorist one thing, namely, that he is licensed, numbered and tagged. Even the hit-and-run motorist realises that. Registration means taxation for the roads which the cyclists up till now have been allowed to use carelessly and, so far as their machines are concerned, with impunity, and to their own hurt in far too many instances. Registration for the motorist means taxation for policing the roads, that is traffic control and safety which the cyclist does not favour, apparently. Motorists also pay out through petrol and tire taxes for safe road surfaces, and they pay out to automobile associations which erect sign-posts which are of no use whatever, of course, to the members of the touring club of! on some dangerous Sunday to Woff-Woff via M T uc-Wuc, sans bell, brake, reflector, lamp, rear red light or whited mudguard. Registration means that the cyclists will pay something toward that traffic control and road safety they should respect. It will mean less trouble in tracing stolen bicycles. Does Mr. Milne know that in Christchurch there is a special department of two constables who do nothing else but deal with lost and stolen bicycles, and that the rate of bicycle stealing in that city is over 1000 a year? Unclaimed bicycle sales in Christchurch are an annual feature.

Anri now, Mr. Milne, get this lastmentioned reason for registration clean and clear. Registration will mean honesty among certain cyclists. Honesty’ is the word. In M’ellington last year in a certain district a large number of young cyclists caught breaking the law gave wrong names and addresses. And the habit isn’t localised, Mr. Milne. In Christchurch when the inspectors carry out a raid on no-light cyclists they travel in a car, pull up in a thoroughfare out of the way, and, as the innocent cyclists come along they are halted. They are asked for, and give, names and addresses. Then they are escorted over to the car. In the rear seat is another inspector with a directory and a torch, and what that torch can and can’t reveal is nobody’s business, except the magistrate’s. Anyone who has the slightest regard for traffic safety must deal with every road-using unit. Every vehicle on the roads should be so equipped that its rider or driver may see as he advances and be seen as he is overtaken. And every vehicle user, be he motorist or cyclist, should comply with the law of safety for himself and others, or take the consequences.

Unusual Obstacle. A heap in the middle of a main Californian road caused some trouble to lorry drivers, who had to swerve round. The' police Investigated the heap and found it to consist of a man curled up peacefully asleep with his head Pillowed on a bottle.