ALL-NIGHT PARKING IN STREETS

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 159, 1 April 1938, Page 10

ALL-NIGHT PARKING IN STREETS

Wellington Cars Greatly Outnumber Garages BY-LAW FLOUTED BY TACIT CONSENT Many Wellington people, instead of keeping their cars in a garage, park them in the street all night. This is contrary to the Wellington city bylaws. At the same time, it is quite impossible that they should all be garaged when not in use, because there are in Wellington more than 13,000 private cars, but fewer than 7000 garages. And it is certain that at present the number of cars is multiplying very much faster than the number of garages. - Residents in almost any suburb know how many are the cars that line the kerb night-long, night after night. Oriental Parade is a typical example. Numbers of cars repose ungaraged in the public street every night of the year along the Parade; and as the houses for the most part stand right against the street, ■without the buffer of a garden plot, the noise of their stopping and starting late at night and early in the morning is a nuisance to the residents. For in many cases it is not the street-front householders who are the offenders, but dwellers on the heights behind. The city corporation by-law which deals with night-parking contains a clause specially framed to cope with this particular offence, which is the common state of affairs in almost every part of the town. It lays down that no motor-vehicle shall be permitted to remain stationary in any street or public place longer than 30 minutes between 3 and 6 o’clock in the morning. Difficulty of Enforcing By-law. Interviewed, a city traffic officer conceded that it was impossible to enforce this by-law,- without having the hardworked staff of that department out all night as well as all day. Even if the by-law were enforced, it would obviously impose a hardship on many motorists, when there are not enough garages to go round. Statistics tell that Wellington, excluding Johnsonville and the Hutt Valley, has well over 13,000 private cars. Yet It is estimated that there are very little more than half that number of garages. Some, of course, are double Some of the cars, no doubt, sleep in the big city garages able to hold a considerable number of vehicles. But, even so, it is estimated that at a very conservative figure 5000 cars know no home but the street. Temptation To Theft. From time to time it is reported in the Press that an epidemic of car conversion or theft is sweeping Wellington; but the temptation is plainly great when cars are left in this way to fend for themselves. Rental of garages in Wellington varips between 5/- and 7/6 weekly, but whatever the reason for so many cars being out all night, the position is accepted by the general public in a tolerant spirit aqd with understanding of the motorist’s dilemma. The bylaw is flouted openly by tacit consent. Few cases of such nocturnal parking, if any, come into the courts. Although it is clear that such parked cars must in a degree constitute a public nuisance, the traffic department states that no more complaints are received from this than from any other cause. Nor has any case yet been recorded of a motor-owner being obliged, either by his neighbours’ malice or the zealous forces of law and order, to rise from his bed in the middle of the night, at half-hourly intervals, for the purpose of shifting his automobile in compliance with the by-law.