FEW ACCIDENTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 156, 30 December 1944, Page 8

FEW ACCIDENTS

SO A HAPPIER HOLIDAY

START NEW YEAR WITH ' QUEUES Wellington had got through the busy Christmas-New Year week with a most gratifying low accident rate, and so a happier holiday, thanks to a generally good response by motorists and pedestrians to the appeal to take more than usual care to avoid risk of accident, said the Mayor (Mr. Appleton) today. Not everyone had co-operated, but there had been a noticeable improvement: motorists, after a deserved reminder, had shown more consideration for pedestrians at crossings; i pedestrians had reciprocated; and footpath comfort had certainly been im- ! proved by observance of the walk-to-l the-left rule. j There should be no reason, he said, why Wellington should not continue right through the year in the same way, except that there were always the few who would not play fair unless they had to, under direction. That being so, direction would have to be given, and he proposed, when the council met iit the New Year, to make suggestions as to more stringent enforcement of the traffic rules, particularly as to observance of crossings by both drivers and walkers, and jay-walking. The Automobile Association would, no doubt, co-operate willingly with the traffic office and the police in discouraging traffic habits that brought danger to others. QUEUE HABIT TO BE FOSTERED. Mr. Appleton said, too, that he fully I agreed that the queue habit should be introduced to Wellington at all bus i stops, not necessarily as a matter of compulsion, but certainly as a matter of common sense. It worked very well at Courtenay Place, and a start had been made by other authorities, as at the Eastbourne buses and at the railcars on certain trips from the railway station. A light railing, waist high, and eight or ten feet long, as used in Britain and elsewhere overseas, could be placed two or three feet back from the | footpath edge at the main stopping places to start the queue, and once the first half-dozen or so passengers stood m an orderly line common sense would result in the continuation of the queue beyond the railing. "BuJ why wait for the railing? Why not start the. queue habit right away in th£ New Year?" he added. "Here again,l; the majority of: people are wining td'play fair, butthefew don't play unless] "they have do. However, when the qjieue. habit Ttoes take hold those who try to crush in will get very nasty looks,4and in the' end it will work out very .foell.? *.- . . • ' " ~ • • Sonic publicity had 'recently been givenxto the need of a ■ central ■ bus depot! said' Mr. Appleton. That had to come,'but it would probably have to wait till after the war. The idea of a joint depot, from which city, railway, %nd Eastbourne buses would .all operate, was a -good -one, but there would stiir.be need for a separate city depot nearer the ■ centre of the ■ shopping and business-area for buses running to Karori. and the eastern and southern suburbs.