SOME IMPROVEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 16, 19 July 1939, Page 12

SOME IMPROVEMENT

PEDESTRIAN WAYS

DIFFICULTY AT NIGHT

Commenting upon the remarks mad« by Mr. Justice Reed and upon the recommendation of the Grand Jury in the Supreme Court on Monday that endeavours should be made to enforce [more strictly the regulation which gives, on paper, the right-of-way to pedestrians on marked crossings, a member of the city traffic staff : said today that he did think that observance was better than it was,.say, six months ago, but there was still a long way to go before crossings would be safe, for pedestrians and the city could get about its business with a decent degree of comfort of mind. ■-....

"Observance is good," he said, "for just as long as an officer in uniform-is stationed at or near a crossing, but as soon as he goes a certain percentage of drivers and pedestrians ignore the rules and take chances. There are r 150 of these crossings in the city arid siiburbs and it is not possible to maintain supervision at. all of them all the time." -

One difficulty, creating a positive danger, was that in outer areas pedestrians resident in the locality became accustomed to using certain crossings by night as well as day, but motorists from outside such . districts, did hot know that crossings were there and drove ahead. Anyone with driving experience knew the difficulty of picking up crossing marks at night, particularly when the road surface was wet. Some system of indicating the crossing place at night would assist considerably. "However," he said, "the fact is that observance is not nearly good enough, on the part of both motorists and pedestrians, and, bad as the city accident rate was last year, it will be worse unless both parties to the crossing bargain start in now to observe the regulation, as a preliminary t» the more difficult traffic conditions which will have to be met during the Exhibition period." ';

SAFETY COUNCIL'S RECOMMENDA-

TION AS TO LIGHTING,

The Road Safety Council discussed the advisability of lighting pedestrian crossings at its last quarterly meeting, and has sent out a recommendation that all pedestrian ways should be* so lit as to be visible under all conditions at'a distance of at least 100 feet. . ■ • :

The council admitted that that*would entail considerable expenditure, by local authorities, but added. that the view of the Transport Department was that far more investigation and care should be put into the selection .of pedestrian crossings, and where .' the amount, of vehicular and pedestrian traffic was not great crossings should not be put down at all. Lighting of safety islands in busiest streets was also strongly recommended.

The Road Safety Council, was referring, of course, to the position in the Dominion as a whole, and not to crossings in Wellington or any particular city, and though there are already 150 marked crossings there is probably room for a good many more, under the measure of volume of traffic, in city and suburban streets. Exhibition traffic will require a number of additional marked crossings and thorough: observance by everyone, with or without uniformed supervision

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