CYCLISTS AT NIGHT

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1934, Page 9

CYCLISTS AT NIGHT

COURTING INJURY

FARCICAL REFLECTORS

BYLAWS OX PAPER

(By "X.")

Unless something very wonderful happens, the- usual winter time carcyclist fatalities and accidents will occur this year. Each year the extreme danger to cyclists who ride machines not adequately lighted is written about and talked about, but nothing effective has been done.

The geneyal rule is that cyclists must have, in addition to the white light ahead, a. red reflector attached to the rear mudguard, and some local bodies have bylaws insisting that the rear mudguard must be painted white, generally for about half its length. The reflector regulation is not enforced, and probably half the cyclists in. Welling-1 ton do not know that they are supposed to have the rear mudguard whitened, though they may have heard about some such rule~-in force somewhere or other, and may think it quite a good idea. The curious thing is that cyclists have not sufficient common sense to look after their jown safety, bylaws or no bylaws.

The red reflector is no protection at all if it is not placed on the mudguard properly. .Many cyclists seem to think that if they have screwed a reflector on the mudguard anyhow at all they have doiio very well indeed, even if it points upwards so that it cannot possibly reflect back lights from an overtaking car. The bylaw states that it must be placed vertically and must be of such a type that it reflects over an angle of 40 degrees. THE GREATEST DANGEK. Neither reflectors, even when properly placed, nor. .whitened mudguards are adequate to guarantee safety when a motorist overhauls a cyclist as another car approaches from the opposite direction. Sightly or wrongly, the motor regulations forbid 'the dimming of headlights as cars meet, and on a wet night it is well nigh impossible for a driver to pick up a cyclist ahead with the lights of an approaching car in his eyes, whether he is driving at fifty or fifteen miles per hour.

Since the opening of the Mount Victoria tunnel the city traffic authorities have pulled up hundreds of. cyclists for not carrying reflectors and whitened mudguards, and, incidentally, have been\ given an astonishing variety of fictitious names and addresses, which suggests that if cyclists lack common sense they have much imagination. In! Christchurch cycles must be registered, a small fee being charged, and there fictitious names are risky, but here there is no cheek and the risk of giving false names and addresses is seemingly worth, taking. . So apparently is the risk of prosecution for failure to carry lights on cycles, let alone reflectors and white mudguards. .

One of; the worst lengths of road as regards risk of collision between cars and cycles is the main road between' Pctone and Lower Hutt. The pavement is narrow, traffic is always heavy ;irid generally fairly fast, the lighting is not good, and a railway bridge adds another danger. Five and halfpast five workers jump cheerfully across .their machines .and push for home along, 'tha ''bitumen. Any number of them ride I without lights. There is no cycle track und the roadway is hardly wide enough to permit of one being laid. There is uo regular supervision of cyclists on this dangerous length.

The wrangle over the ' rights of cyclists is by no means peculiar . to Wellington: Every town has it; likewise every country, and overseas authorities have stepped into the picture in some instances and have brought in regulations which end the. cyclist's rights to run a heavy risk himself and to endanger others. In France, for instance, all pedal cyclists riding during the legal hours of darkness are required by law to carry a lighted rear light as well as a headlight. Naturally thero was tremendous opposition^ to the law, but it went through, and became operative in July of last year. Now a similar proposal is being pressed in Great Britain, and as tho traffic authorities at Home have during the last year or so expressed their determination to-, reduce the accident risk the proposal is not likely to be quickly dropped. Of course, such a regulation would be futile if it were enforced no better than the red reflector and white mudguard rules in the Wel-lington-dhtrict. * * ■■*''■ * After writing the above the writer this morning walked from the "Evening Post" down Mercer Street, past the Town Hall, and back by "Wakefield Street. His count of cycles was this: Reflector and whitened mudguard, 2; reflector only, 3; white mudguard only, -; neither reflector nor white mudguard, 11.

The bylaw is neither well known nor enforced.