ROAD DAMAGE

Evening Star, Issue 20614, 14 October 1930, Page 4

ROAD DAMAGE

NEGLECTED POWERS SPEED AND WEIGHT RESTRICTION [From Ouk Parliamentary Exporter.] WELLINGTON, October 13. The Transport Department’s report states that from investigations already made it is abundantly clear that the financial position alone in connection with road transport is so serious as to necessitate uniform classification of roads throughout the dominion, definite maximum speed restrictions on gravel and macadam roads, and tho regulation of commercial traffic to keep road traffic down to reasonable requirements, and provide machinery for the co-ordination of services. To enforce these proposals would necessitate little additional expenditure so far as the central administration is concerned, but would certainly entail a staff of transport inspectors for road duty, including tho enforcement of all road transport powers vested in the Government. , , , Of the 40,000 odd miles of roads, less than 1,000 miles are dustless, and the report urges some action to keep the cost down to something more in keeping with actual requirements. CRITICISM OF SOUTH ISLAND. It is complained that, although statutory power exists for road classification and speed restriction, the two most important factors in road costs, many local authorities, particularly in tho South Island, decline to classify, and if this classification were done by the Minister of Transport, no Governmental machinery is available to enforce it, as obviously the local authority would decline to ,do so. In this connection attention is drawn by the report to tho South Island, where nearly the whole of the reading system, including main highways, is unclassified, and therefore available for gross loads up to tho full statutory limit of ten tons on two-axled vehicles, and fifteen tons on multi-axled vehicles. Add to this the fact that no limitation of speed exists for light traffic, and that at certain speeds ordinary motor ears do more damage to gravel and macadam roads than legitimate heavy traffic thereon, travelling at regulation speeds, and some idea may he gained of the damage to roads owing to the lack of reesenaMe regulation.