MOTOR CARS AND THE ROADS.

Evening Star, Issue 11776, 5 January 1903, Page 4

MOTOR CARS AND THE ROADS.

There seems to bo every prospect that tli'; discontent, felt among the users of motor cars as to their position on the roads is fast (oiav.'ia to a head, and at the same tuna that the grievances alleged to bo suffered by users of the roads who. do riot drive motor cars are likely soon to to examined and sifted with a view to an equitable adjustment. The position is -a complicated one, and it is rendered the more difficult owing to the existence on the one hand of inconsiderate and reckless rnotor-drivciE, and on the other of stupid; and prejudiced pedestrians and users of bonus. A correspondence which has for some time been appearing in the London ‘Times’ lias done a good deal to ventilate the grievances on both sides, and when one separates the reasonable from the unreasonable complaints ■ there remains a certain number of definite demands which, although they would seem at first to be hopelessly conflicting, are not really impossible to combine in a working rule of the road. i\o one denies that tome new rule or readjustment of the old rules and customs has become necessary now that the motor car has established its position as a permanent and widely-nsed means of load transport. It has entirely revolutionised the condition of the roads, and it is tending to restore many of them to on importance which they have not held since the railways robbed them of their passenger traffic. It has brought prosperity to many remote inns and villages which the tide of progress had left high and dry and out of the world; it has created in the country a new, valuable, and constantly increasing industry of a character in which British wcedfinanahip is certain to establish a • supremacy. These circumstances, with the fact of its increasing popularity amongst travellers by road, are sufficient to entitle the motor err to the fullest consideration in the formal and informal legislation which governs the use of the roads. The caso against it, sound enough if it is urged merely as a- means for the common and equitable protection of all who use the highways, breaks down altogether when it is directed simply against the motor car as a public nuisance. But at least some of the non-motorif.fc’s grievances are reasonable, and cannot be ignored in any broadminded consideration of the case.

In lie first place, there is the question of speed. The statutory limit of twelve miles aa hour, sensible enough, perhaps, when the Act was framed and when automobQjsm was in a stove of experiment, has become absurd now mat the capabilities of motors arc known and established, and their efficient control' seemed. The worst feature of this limit is that it seems to give pedestrians absolute protection, while in fact it decs nothing of the kind. There are circumstances in which a paco of twelve miles an hour, or anything like it, would bo a most dangerous paco; but there are practically no ordinary circumstances in which, if twelve miles an hour were a sate pace, fifteen or even twenty miles an hour would lie unsafe. Oao assumes, of cferse, the pitscuw of a competent driver; and, in this matter, tils demand that people who wish to drive motors on the puhuo highways should be examined by a proper authority and receive a license seems reasonable—.os much for the protection of motorists as of pedestriass. The danger of having their licenses suspended would itavo a wholesome effect on tho few reckless and inconsiderate drivers who have brought motors into so much disrepute, and the punishment of whom is as earnestly desired by the ordinary users of motors as by the general public. But, given a competent, driver, tuere is no reason why any definite, inelastic limit of speed should bo, enforced. What is or is not a safe speed depends on circumstances, and varies with them, and should be decided according to circiuustances. A mmorist who, while driving at four miles an hour, were to ron into a child or other pedestrian would, in the absence of culpable negligence on the pedestrian's part, be driving to the common danger, and should be made answerable for his negligence; ltd there is no conceivable reason why a motorist who chooses to travel at thirty miles an hour on an empty moorland road where he can sea his way for miles beiore him .should be subject to tho penalty of a heavy fine. Circumstances, wo i t peat, should alone determine his liability; and with iamiliaritv with varying circumstances will (.cmo tie ability to judge as to what is and is not a common-sense course. On the other band, motorists complain, with some justice, <d the way in winch people ahew very little children to sttay about tho roads in country places, and to use them as playgrounds. It may »1 first seam a hard nip lo such people that this should n« longer be allowed, hut it is to bo remembered that the first, use of roads is for purports of travel, and that those who travel Ujjou them should have the first- right to their use. Children have hitherto used "he reads as a playground because their doing to inconvenienced nobody; but now that sufferance mud it is only a sufferance and not a light) must be withdrawn in the interests of the greater number. There remains as au agent working against the motorist the somewhat selfish, but celt cutely stubborn and powcuul influence tf those who dislike motors, who hate the sight and sound of them, who regard them as invaders «. sacred territory, and who believe them to be nuisances, to suppress which no effort should be spared. The feeling may be selfish, as we ary, but it is one with which few people cannot ip * greater or less degree sympathise. But here, again, a little philosophy and common sense on both tides would work wonders. Wo may regard motor cars as nuisances to be suppressed, but to do so js idle; thfey represent a great social and economic development, the. full extent of which is probably not dreamed of yet.—-The ‘Pilot.’