ROAD RULES DEFIED

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 152, 24 December 1926, Page 22

ROAD RULES DEFIED

AN TJBGKNT PUBLIC WOBK.

Glenmore sfcroct (Lower Karori road) is not unique. Spain apparently produces precisely similar conditions. There is a letter in "The Motor" from a correspondent, J. H. Lines, of Bilbao. It is under tho caption "A Traffic Problem," and is accompanied by a diagram showing a tramcar (C) proceeding along' the wrong sido of tho road close against the edge, a motorcar (A) on its correct side face to face with the tram on rounding a bend, and a second car (B) alongside the tram proceeding in the same direction and leaving no room for A to dash, out to safety. Tho letter reads:—

"I should be glad if' any of your readers can give mo a solution to the following situation -which always puzzles me, and which has often caused accidents in this country. The car A, travelling on its proper side of a road (right in this country) along which a single tramway line is laid, turns a bend, and finds both the car B and the tramcar C coining in the opposite direction. The car B is.overtaking the tramcar C, and there is no room for all three vehicles to pass each other abreast. Who has to give way, and what should A and/or B do? If A stops, he is liable to bo run into by the tramcar, and if he swerves out of the tram line*, B, who is on his right side of tHp road also, may not stop, and so form a collision. Of course, the proper course would be for C, who is on ihe wrong side of the road, to stop; but tram drivers do not always think of the iu\es of the road. Is this a case of wrongly overtaking, on a corner, by B, even though he is on the right side of the road?"

Certainly 'the tram should .stop. The trouble is that it may not be able to stop,in time. As a matter of fact, everybody should stop. That is the only xational course, because everybody ia wrong. • The rule of the road has no application whatsover, having been rendered null and void by tho building of the tram line close up on its wrong side on a road where only two vehicles can pass abreast., A special rule of the road is needed, i.e., that the tram line is no part of the road, but that tho traffic road is that part which is clear of the tram line. That is to say, in the case of Glenmore street, traffic should keep clear of the tram line at all danger points. Motors would then have to proceed with caution, ai) they would frequently be brought face to face at the corners.

That is one solution, but it is not a solution that, gives safety. There is no safety solution of the problem by traffic rules at all. The letter mentions that accidents have frequently occurred in Spain. It is' as much by good luck as good management that serious accidents do not occur iv Glenmore street, but with the daily growing traffic and the increasing trams' at crush hours a serious accident ia inevitable, sooner or later.

There are three true solutions. One is to get rid of the tram. That, of course, will never be done. The second is to duplicate the tram line so that the cars are always on their correct side. Sooner or later' this has got to be done, unless another route is provided to convey people to Karori. The third is: the solution the City Council has put in hand, the widening of the road. That work has ceased for the present, and the council is in a' quandary. It is a situation that should not be allowed to continue. The matter is really urgent, and nothing should be permitted, to. stand in the way of making this road safe.

At present traffic rules are broken all day long in Glenmore street, arid it is inevitable that that should be so. Down in Tinakori road itself up-going motors generally pass trams on the wrong side, and the wider trade vehicles must do so, or continue to follow behind. If a tribute were wanted to the alertness of the Wellington motorist, and the tramdriver also, it could b3 obtained nowhere more readily than in Tinakori road, where, in addition to the evils already enumerated, tho state of the road surface causes almost everyone to "stick" to the tram line as much as possible.