HORN BLOWERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 7, 8 July 1938, Page 10

HORN BLOWERS

RESTRICTIVE STEP

CITY AREAS

BYLAWS DISALLOWED

The Minister of Transport (the Hon. R. Semple) today disallowed all bylaws throughout the Dominion relating to the, sounding of warning devices on motor-vehicles. More than fifty sets of bylaws are affected. The Minister stated that he proposed to deal with the sounding of warning devices by regulation. Uniformity would be achieved and the usual excuse for "excessive horn-blowing" in built-up areas would be removed.

"The Road Safety. Council, at its meeting in February, unanimously recommended me to disallow bylaws requiring the use of a horn or other warning device on approaching intersections in urban areas," said Mr. Semple. "The council expressed the opinion that it was not conducive to good driving to require the horn to be sounded at every cross-road, and indeed the better driver was the man who did not use the horn in these circumstances. It was considered that the good driver should not be put in the position either of using the horn or of breaking the law."

Mr. Semple said that a special subcommittee of the Road Safety Council made a very thorough investigation of the question and obtained evidence from overseas. The recommendations of the sub-committee went ' much further than it was proposed to go at the present time. LOUDER THE BLAST, FASTER THE SPEED. "As used by many drivers," said Mr. Semple, "the horn is merely a declaration that they are on the road and that all other drivers must look out. The louder the blast at an intersection, generally the faster the speed of approach. 'Drive on your vision, not on the other fellow's hearing,' should be the rule." *

The Road Safety Council believed that the all-too-prevalent practice of unnecessary horn-blowing went beyond the creation of nerve-deranging noise, said Mr. Semple. It robbed the true emergency signal of much of its effect; it encouraged speeding and reckless approach to bends, corners, and intersections; it tended to embarrassment and confusion of other users of roads and streets. The council considered that there were cases in a city where the blowing of a horn was justifiable, as to warn a pedestrian who was about to place himself in danger or to warn a car ahead, but generally speaking,. the safe driver in built-up areas should find no need whatever, apart from cases of emergency, to sound his horn. IN THE COUNTRY. "On country roads the position may be different," said the Minister. "There the element of nuisance is not present, and in remote districts the horn has its greatest justification. The more sparsely settled the district, the less the road user is likely to expect other traffic. . 'in cities, however, the value of the horn as a warning device is smothered by a mass of unnecessary and unintelligently applied sound. The council is definitely of the opinion that if the use of the horn is restricted the •horn will gain immeasurably in effectiveness and safer driving will result."

The special sub-committee of the Road Safety Council brought forward an interesting historic point concerning horn-blowing, Mr. Semple said. The provision of warning devices was one of the earliest requirements of the regulations. The motor-car was an exceptional form of transport arid the presence of a car at any particular time would be unexpected; its presence then constituted a state of emergency. But the conditions today were vastly different. The ordinarily careful road user when approching an intersection must now assume that one or more motor-vehicles may also be doing the same. In Rome, Columbia, and Washington, in Great Britain, Tasmania, and Germany, there were restrictions on the abuse of the horn. In New Zealand it might well be found that better control of the horn might be closely connected with the better observance of the 30 mile limit. The Road Safety Council felt that the drastic lessening of the use of the horn in built-up areas might promote rather than impair road safety.