MORE STRINGENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 118, 21 May 1941, Page 9

MORE STRINGENT

BLACK-OUT RULES

IN FORCE FROM MONDAY

HEADLIGHT PROBLEM

The further restrictions upon lighting in coastal cities and towns, of which formal notice is repeated in "The Post" today, are to come into force on Monday, May 26. Unquestionably they will make an unpleasant difference in Wellington, but the Dominion Controller of Lighting has been advised by th„ naval and military authorities that further restriction is necessary to reduce the degree of shy glow above coastal centres and in turn has passed on that advice and instructions to the local controllers.

Shop window and display lighting will be most directly affected, not merely in the central area, but in all suburbs and in all suburban shops and stores, no matter how small.

All interior . shop window light sources must be shielded so -that no direct light reaches the footpath cr street. More, the amount of light permissible- in window lighting is to be drastically reduced, and no lamp may be of a greater power than 60 watts.

All under-verandah lights and porch lights are banned, whether shaded or not.

Theatre and other- display lights are also to be very much reduced. Street lighting also is to be further reduced in the so-called non-vulner-able districts as well as in those parts •which face the sea ; round the coast, or On hillsides, but the. shields to be used..will be different from those attached to sea •'- coast or hill district gibbes. • The reduction of shop, theatre, and street lighting will inevitably throw more attention upon house lighting, and though'no'direct'-order has been issued that householders in areas not directly visible from the sea should see that blinds or screens shield room lights from shining outside local controllers have asked that that should Ibe done without official order. I If the further restrictions, to come ! into force next Monday have still not reduced the sky glow to the degree aimed at still wider restrictions will almost certainly be ordered. CARS A PROBLEM. Several statements have been made that car headlights are' to be dealt with, but the problem, is not an easy one to tackle. That the attempt to black out such a stretch of road as the Paekakariki coastal highway by calling upon storekeepers and owners of seaside homes and baches to stop the last chink is badly upset by the stream of cars and lorries with brilliant headlights is. obvious, but the motoring habits of the.'whole country will have to be altered if heae'lights are to be dimmed to anything like the degree that highway, street, and seaside lighting generally has been reduced. A serious increase in the road accident rate would almost certainly, follow. In Britain the problem is different, for a complete black-out is imposed for a distance of ten miles inland.;

Already the clash between reduced street lighting and still brilliant headlights is worrying drivers of motor vehicles and tramway motormen. The driver who is ready now to comply with the spirit, of the light reduction gets along well enough on his side lights vmder dimmed street lighting until he meets the glare of full powered headlights on a suburban street or highway where pedestrian and cycle traffic is likely, then for his own safe driving he switches back to headlights. . Tramway motormen are in the same box, except that they have no.brighter headlight reply to motorists who blind them on darkened roadways.

A --lot of hard thinking is being done by someone over, this motor headlight problem, but no one has thought out the reasonable medium between darkening car headlights and the maintenance of highway and road safety.