BEGINNING AT SCHOOL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 254, 23 July 1936, Page 13

BEGINNING AT SCHOOL

Teaching 1 of Driving and Road Lore MARLBOROUGH PROPOSAL By Telegraph—Press Association. Blenheim, July 22. “You don’t hear of many people being poisoned through bad cooking or anybody being killed through bad woodwork, but you do hear of thousands being killed through faulty driving,’* declared Mr. G. M. Spence when advocating at a meeting of motorists last evening that the Education Departshould include instruction in traffic regulations and motor-driving in the school curriculum. The meeting was held under the auspices of the Automobile Association (Marlborough) for the purpose of discussing the growing problem of road safety and the measures necessary to minimise traffic accidents. It was recognised that the schools were doing a certain amount toward making children conversant with traffic rules, said Mr. Spence, but he contended that the instruction must go farther. Virtually all children now at school would be motorists when they grew up, he said, and it was essential that they lie given a thorough grounding in the operation of motor vehicles and observance of the regulations, competence in which, was going to become more essential as time went on. Pupils were already taught cooking and woodwork and similar accomplishments which they might or might not use in later life, but there was no instruction in driving, which would certainly be useful.

It was appreciated by the meetingthat youth was the time to learn anything, including motoring, and it was resolved to approach the Government through the South Island Motor Union to include the subject in the curriculum.