THE WHITE LINE.

Evening Star, Issue 22878, 9 February 1938, Page 7

THE WHITE LINE.

TO THE EDITO*.

Sir, —“ Reasonable Latitude ”is the typo of motorist who helps to keep the accident figures up to their present staggering total and gives the average motorist like myself at least two or three unpleasant moments on every trip I take, snort or long. First, this question of open bends where “ Reasonable Latitude ” thinks he can see a safe distance ahead. Let us assume that he sees the road clear to the next corner. What of the motorist who rounds that corner as “ Reasonable Latitude” is approaching, now swung over to his wrong side to take the bend without swaying? Will not the approaching motorist be disconcerted at least, thus adding to his driving strain, to see a car approaching on its wrong side —or worse, a heavy bus, which in any case takes up a great deal of the road? And if this bus is maintaining this hypothetical touring speed, assuredly it will be going, dangerously fast —“touring speed ” cranks generally do. The approaching driver will have to brake and swing hard to the uttermost edge of the road while the “ touring-speed crank ” swings his tail wildly to get back at least to straddling the centre line. Last Sunday coming from Dunedin to Portdbello I met a stream of town-going cars, a large proportion of which adopted this careless practice of cutting open bends, so that -when I came upon them round sharp bends 1 found sometimes three cars on my side of the road, causing me to brake suddenly. Naturally my drive was far from pleasant. Of course, as I approached they all made an attempt to get over, but as the majority were speeding I had to do the best I could on a quarter of the road, while the “open-bend” addicts took threequarters. Again, on such a road as the Dunedin-Portobello road there are practically no straight stretches, so that, if I am to overtake a car, 1 must do it on an open bend, but often cursed by such people as “ Reasonable Latitude ” —or rather his slower-moving brethren—ahead of me. I have to “ toot ” persistently to get them over to their left, and generally by the time they have done that the next corner has loomed up, so that I have not a safe distance in which to pass. If every driver stuck religiously to the left of the road a lot of horn-using by overtaking cars would be saved and a great deal of irritation ; cars coming from the opposite direction would not be disconcerted; and a habit—-wrong side is all right for open bends —would not grow, as it does now, to downright carelessness tending to wrong side at all times. I have been forced over into the ditch several times by _ the “ straddlers ” and wrong-side drivers, and so have most of my friends, and it would give us great pleasure to see the traffic officers beguile their so-called monotonous hours of duty by rounding up the “ white-line straddlers ” and their pernicious brethren, leaving the road to those who can drive sanely, courteously, and safely.—l am, etc., Keep to the Left, February 8.