ROADS AND SIGNPOSTS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 150, 21 March 1939, Page 10

ROADS AND SIGNPOSTS

British Motorist Praises

New Zealand Dominion Special Service. CHRISTCHURCH, March 20. “I must congratulate you on your automobile associations; the signposts to give direction to motorists, in the South Island specially, are excellent; they are unusually intelligent, and 1 have written expressing my congratulations,” said Mr. Barratt Stennett, a retired business man, of London, who has motored 25,000 miles a year on the average for the last 33 years in all parts of the world, when he was interviewed during a brief stay in Christchurch. He said he was very pleased detail given on the signposts. In England a motorist-would often see a main town some 00 miles away indicated, with no indication of the places that lay between. It was very much better done in« New Zealand, and he had already taken half a dozen photographs of the signposts to* show to motorists In other places. Australia and New Zealand, “The roads in New Zealand are wonderful,” he said, “when one considers the size of the country, its population, and its age. Of course, there are better roads in other countries of the world, in the United States, England and Europe, but I am making a comparison with the roads in Australia, where some of the roads are absolutely terrible. To drive along them is like going over ploughed fields.” Mr. Stennett said he did not altogether agree with the practice in New Zealand of straightening the roads. It often saved very little time and distance at a considerable cost. ANOTHER TRIBUTE The excellence of the signposting on the roads throughout New Zealand was commented on by Mr. F. C. Mason, an English visitor to Wellington, who said he had travelled extensively by car and had found them unfailingly helpful and much better than in England. The roads, though not perfect, were on the whole very good, and much better than he had expected. While in the South Island, Mr. Mason visited Lake Wakatipu, the Eglinton Valley and the Hermitage. The average person in England, he said, had no idea that New Zealand possessed scenery of such variety and grandeur.