SUPPORT FOR A BILL

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 81, 2 October 1924, Page 4

SUPPORT FOR A BILL

The New Zealand Automobile Glub has suggested only minor alterations in the Motor Vehicles Bill. It has gone further in expressing general satisfaction with the measure and congratulating the promoters upon the work done. It is not to be understood from this that the Bill is deemed perfect or that motorists henceforth and forever more will ask for no legislation. But it is recognised that the Bill is an advance upon the present law. The difficulties which remain, such as those arising from double taxation, may be overcome- after experience of the operation of the present measure. The motorists have chosen not to oppose the Bill because it does not give everything they want; and by this choice they will help to assure the passage of the Bill. It is to be hoped that other authorities and organisations interested in this legislation will be equally reasonable. There is every reason for hoping that they will be.

The chief complaint that has been made lies not against this Bill but against the action of the Main Highways Board, which has decided that its funds are not available for main highways in the larger boroughs. Yet many of the motorists who will now be taxed never move outside the towns, and the wear and tear of their traffic will be a charge upon local bodies, who receive from them only a trifling driver's license fee. This defect, however, is not in the Motor Vehicles Bill, but in the administration by the Highways Board. Possibly it arises from the failure to grant the boroughs representation on the Board. This failure to secure representation was allowed to pass at the time in the belief that it would have no effect upon the Board's decisions. Now, however, it appears necessary that the boroughs should have a representative of their own, so that their views and their claims may be placed before the Board.