The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1927. NOISY MOTOR CYCLISTS.

Evening Star, Issue 19745, 21 December 1927, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1927. NOISY MOTOR CYCLISTS.

hr is surprising that some local bodies have not before this taken action in regard to the excessive speed and noise made by many motor cyclists. The matter was ventilated at this week’s meeting of the St. Kilda Borough Council. That body lias been gradually eliminating grounds lor the reproach that many of its streets were merely stretches of ruts and potholes, but the tar-sealed macadam surfaces provided have fostered a nuisance which parents of young children will certainly consider worse than ill-paved thoroughfares, because the element of danger is added to that of annoyance. In too many of the suburbs the Sabbath calm is entirely a thing of the past, because motor cyclists appear to utilise that day for the trying out of their machines, possibly after a week-end overhaul. Certain routes and thoroughfares seem to be chosen for the purpose, and the greater the speed attained and the more deafening the din created the more the rider is satisfied with the test. But the ultimate limit appears to have been reached last Sunday in one particular street in St. Kilda, which for the time being became a speedway on which motor cycle competitions were held. The matter is really one for the police to take action, "but in the general run of cases a constable on foot has small chance of halting a speed maniac, and not much better opportunity to note the number of his machine. As a matter of fact, the activity of the police in controlling motor traffic is attested by the large proportion of these cases in the daily list of police court proceedings. But how that list might bo swelled if there were adequate prosecutions tor excessive speed and noise on the part of motor cyclists any observant frequenter of our streets could attest. Presumably there will be more when the new regulations drafted by the Public Works Department come into effect throughout New Zealand, which should be almost immediately, as it was intended that they should become operative before the Christmas holiday traffic begins. The most important of those regulations deal with speed. There is a general regulation against driving a vehicle so fast that it cannot bo brought to a standstill within half the distance of clear road visible to the driver. As this would be difficult of estimation and of enforcement, it may bo regarded in the light of a hint to drivers for the safety of themselves and others. However, succeeding regulations are much more definite and restrictive. A general speed limit of thirty-five miles an hour is prescribed, but in boroughs and town districts a speed in excess of twenty-five miles an hour is not permissible. But it is one thing to prescribe speed limits and quite another thing to enforce them. Most elaborate traps have been devised by the authorities in Britain, and equally elaborate plans have been taken by organisations of car owners to circumvent them, the result being that, where traffic is not congested, some astonishing road speeds are indulged in with impunity by many high-powered car owners. There have been repeated efforts in Britain to have the speed limit regulation wiped out on the ground that, being obsolete and more regarded in the breach than the observance, there is no sense in a spasmodic attempt at enforcement which ignores a hundred offenders for every one brought to book. Of offender's in the matter ,of excessive speed, the motor cyclist is notoriously more glaring and persistent than his brother of the car, especially in proportion to his numbers. And as to the noise nuisance the motor cyclist is in a class by himself. So many of them scorn the silencer that the threat to the nerves of the community because of the irritating din is no mere imaginative one. .What the effect must be

on invalids housed* near a thoroughfare favored of those noisy cyclists does not require a nerve specialist to determine. The blend of selfishness and ostentation of which the unsilenced exhaust is the offensive advertisement ought to be severely repressed, and as this offence is more readily detected than that of a slight excess over the speed limit it should bo promptly dealt with. The discussion on it at the St. Kilda Council showed it to be regarded as an “intolerable nuisance." Why it has been condoned so long is a mysterymany people have been unable to fathom.