FOG IN LONDON

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20151, 22 January 1940, Page 11

FOG IN LONDON

TRAFFIC CONGESTION TORCHES GUIDE ENGINE Traffic difficulties in London in the black-out and fog are described by an English motorist in a letter to a friend in Auckland. On Christmas Eve traffic was practically at a standstill, everyone groping about with torches, states the writer. Crossing the road was a problem, for one could only just see the island lights and vehicles on the far side of the road were merely noises that pass in the night. “Sitting m the window of our flat, which faces the Great North road, we have a lot of fun watching cai> buses groping their way past the park corner until they either fetch up against the school gates or else go left-handed into a small narrow street and have to try to reverse,” he continues. “Last night there were 14 buses all in difficulties. The lender tried conclusions with the school gate. He could turn neither right nor left, and before he could extricate himself the rest piled up behind him lilce a herd of elephants. “There is great congestion at times on the main railway lines and also on the main roads. Certainly the regulations are having the effect of keeping cars off the road at night. A humorous incident occurred on Christmas Eve. A fire engine toiled along guided by men with torches.”

The writer of another letter states that the evacuation scheme in Britain has not been at all satisfactory either to parents or to reception areas. He considers that a proper German air raid on the evacuated towns would have altered the ideas of everyone.