EMERGENCY DUTY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 20, 25 January 1943, Page 4

EMERGENCY DUTY

TRAFFIC CONTROL CORPS

(P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH. Jan. 24. Referring to the Traffic Control Corps Emergency Regulations gazetted this week, the Minister of Transport (Mr. O'Brien) stated that the Traffic Control Corps was set up last year as a military organisation under the command of the Commissioner of Transport. "It is charged with the function of controlling traffic in an emergency through all rural areas and on main routes, through the smaller boroughs," the Minister said. "The corps, which is attached to the Home Guard, replaces the former emergency traffic police. It is organised in companies, each based on an area under the charge of a Transport Department traffic inspector. Each company is commanded by one of these inspectors, who, on general or local mobilisation, assumes military rank and is directly responsible to the military commander in that Army area." Within its particular areas, said the Minister, the Traffic Control Corps would assist the Provost Corps in controlling military traffic and would also be responsible for controlling and directing civilian traffic. Control over vehicle movement during an alarm and over vehicle lighting if an alarm occurred at night were functions of the corps. It had a purpose in rural areas very similar to that of the traffic section of the law and order branch of the E.P.S. in larger centres. "The new regulation," the Minister continued, "enables me as Minister to issue a warrant to any member of the corps, giving him full powers as a traffic inspector. These powers are exercisable only when the member is called out on duty." . , The statement was issued with the approval of the Army authorities.