SAFETY ZONES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 82, 16 October 1928, Page 9

SAFETY ZONES

' MAKING THEM SAFE NEW DESIGN" FOE MELBOURNE (From "The Post's" Representative.) . - SYDNEY, 4th October. So many motor fatalities have occurred -within Melbourne's safety zones that the 'officers of the City Council have been engaged in devising means to make safety zones really safe. Untler the existing system an area of tho road close to the chief tramway stops is enclosed in a broad white line, as is the case in Sydney. In Melbourne this seems to have given tho people a false sense of security, and more than one death has occurred because a pedestrian has eeasefl to exercise reasonable caro once within the zone. Then again cars out of control, or even those driven by. drunken motorists, cannot be prevented from entering a safety zone simply loy a white line. It was clear, therefore, that some other method would have to be devised, or the safety zone system abandoned altogether. It has been decided that the measure Of safety extended to occupants of the zones must be independent of the drivers of vehicles. In future the end of the zone nearest to tho incoming traffic will be protected by a large concrete pillar with a Massive base extending the full width of the zone. The pillar will bear lights at both the apex and the base, and will remain illuminated throughout the night. Its object will be at once to define tho limit of the zone, 'and to prevent any vehicle, who- ■ ther out of control or not, from invading the area set apart for pedestrians. The pillar will be sufficiently massive to stop *any vehicle that might be driven against it. The remainder of. the zone will be marked by porcelain or bright metal studs, and the far end, which should not require any protection, will bear a luminous "button" to define it. These zones are to be placed in the main traffic arteries leading from the city proper. ■ For use within the city the officers recommend a raised type of safety zone with protecting "lighthouses" at the trafile end where the street illumination is considered insufficient. These raised areas, with the additional safeguard of an iron railing, are considered to be the safest form of protection, but they are too expensive to place at other than the busiest places within the city proper. It is planned to place such zones at every stopping-placo in tho city area. Sixty safety zones of the typo adopted for outside the city will cost £6000.