The Right-hand Rule

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 258, 28 July 1936, Page 11

The Right-hand Rule

Sir, —In the debate in Parliament on the new transport regulations I notice that one member advises a more strict enforcement of the right-hand rule. But, as has frequently been pointed out by our local magistrate, Mr. J. L. Stout, this rule is most undesirable, and is actually the cause of many accidents. It was first adopted in countries where traffic keeps to the right side of the road, and motordrivers are seated on the left side of their cars, and under those conditions it proved very useful. But in this country, where traffic keeps to the left side of the road and drivers are seated on the right side of their cars, common sense should make it plain that a left-hand rule is what is wanted. In most cases the driver is seated nearer the back than the front of the car, and the consequence is that when coming to an intersection he cannot see traffic approaching from his right until his own car projects more than half-way beyond the corner, so that he is right in the track of cars approaching from the right, which, relying on the right-hand rule, are probably travelling at considerable speed. The consequence is that they are not always able to avoid a collision, perhaps with fatal effects. If the rule were altered so that drivers would have to give way to traffic approaching from the left, there would be plenty of time for them to stop, as they would have the width of the road in which to do so, and, apart from that, the driver’s seat on the right hand of his car would enable him to see further to his left than he can do under the present rule.

The Minister of Transport is not. at all shy about upsetting existing conditions in other matters, and I hope he will abolish the right-hand rule in favour of a left-hand one. if .not now, at any rate when next year’s licences are taken out, when a notice of the change could be given with the number plates, and posters could be displayed at all licensing offices. —I am, etc., H.N.W. Palmerston North, July 24.