CONTROL OF MOTORISTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1936, Page 8

CONTROL OF MOTORISTS

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—The vigilance of the police on Sunday evening at Oriental Bay was most effective in so far as dealing with reckless motorists and irresponsible youthful cyclists. For too long a period has Oriental Parade been permitted to be used as a speedway and rendezvous for undisciplined youths. Open exhausts, reckless driving,. and unnecessary sounding of horns by ostentatious motorists can only be checked by making an example of offenders.

The question of control of motorists is of vital importance and more particularly as the youth of today has stupidly been permitted to escape the true sense of service and discipline derived from compulsory military training. Road traffic in other parts of the world is controlled entirely by the police who in some instances are subsidised to carry out special duties. The creation of municipal traffic departments in this Dominion not only means overlapping the national duties of our permanent Police Force but are an unnecessary expense to ratepayers and disrupt continuity of control.

The fundamental duties of the police in any part of the civilised world are to detect crime and protect life and property. Municipal traffic departments are therefore an unnecessary expense. The cost of municipal traffic departments runs into many thousands a year in this Dominion whilst an efficient Police Force, provided by the taxpayers, is always standing by for any emergency that may arise.—l am, etc., CIVIS.