DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 21784, 28 July 1934, Page 11

DANGEROUS INTERSECTIONS.

TO THE EDITOK. Sir,—The suggestions made by “ F.J.” in your issue of Wednesday, would be very expensive to carry out, and it is more than doubtful if any advantage would accrue, other than the benefit extra road facilities confer on tho community as a whole. It is not a lack-of room—there’is ample in Dunedin for all traffic oni the streets at present, and for many years to come. The trouble seenis to me to be three-fold: traffic; (2) unsatisfactory means of testing would-be drivers; (3) lack of standard traffic regulations, for the whole of the dominion. Let us take the points in more detail. (1) Traffic in the minds of tho powers that be apparently refers to only one thing—motor traffic, and this is the only kind -that an attempt is made to control. Push cycles and pedestrian traffic are nobody’s business, and they wander about at their own sweet will, while.drivers of horse-drawn vehicles are not noted for their observance of-the regulations; (2) the present test for drivers seems to be of less and less use each year, because cars are becoming increasingly more easy to drive and handle generally, and it is this aspect that is most in view during the test. ' Th,e whole test, of a person being, a safe driver or not lies firstly in his mental capacity, and, 1 secondly in the power ■ to react quickly to stimulus. It is necessary to,, decide what to do in,'the ’ split fraction of a second, otherwise it is not worth while doing anything, as the accident has occurred.. Three years ago this month 1 wrote to the ‘ New Zealand Motor Owner ’ along similar lines, and my contentions were not disputed. The chief traffic; inspector agreed that' the test question “has been a vexed problem since its inception.’’ 1 was, particularly interested in an article on a-means of testing drivers evolved by the- National .Physical Laboratory. While not yet fully complete, if really, is a test in the true sense of the word. (3) We are overwhelmed with regulations—thirtytwo, pages.of them, so many that even the traffic inspectors themselves can not keep track of them. In addition there is a whole host of petty by-laws evolved by every small authority, small in everything but the idea of their own importance. As if this is not enough we have in Dunedin at least, a system of parking areas like unto _ the mushroom family,, for they spring up in the twinkling of an eye, and in a like manner are swept away. Let , us have fewer regulations, make them, as far as possible, universal,. and rigidly enforce them against traffic of every description. A person . attempting to commit suicide is hailed before the court and given a severe talking to at least. A pedestrian' can risk his own and others lives by foolish antics and a lack or common sense in using the roads, and nothing is done. All motorists are at times .pedestrians, but not all pedestrians are motorists, and they do not realise the danger their actions are .to themselves and others. It is high

time, for their own sakes, that traffic laws were, made for them. The statement that “ it is better to be twenty seconds late in this world, than twenty years too soon in the next ” is worth repeating until every user of the roads in whatever capacity remembers, anti acts upon it.—l am, etc., Better Control. July, 2(1.