TOLL OF THE ROAD

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20153, 24 January 1940, Page 6

TOLL OF THE ROAD

HOLIDAY FIGURES BEST IN 18 YEARS MINISTER GRATIFIED (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. The number of road motor traffic accidents during last Christinas and New Year holidays was the lowest for 18 years, according to a statement by the Minister of Transport, the Hon. R. Semple. “Yet it must be remembered that the traffic on roads during this period was the heaviest in the history of New Zealand,” he said. “There were probably four or five times as many cars on the roads as there were 18 years ago. An indication of the increase is given by the fact that there were 90,000 more cars on the road than there were three years ago. “Were it not for deaths from motor cycle accidents in Auckland and an accident in which a young girl with her mother as a passenger drove into a train, we would almost have had a clean sheet. This proves the value of better roads, better transport organisation and control propaganda, and amendment and co-ordination of traffic regulations during the last four years.

“We are a long way in the lead of every other country, although we are the second most heavily motorised country in the world, following the United States. We have a car to one in every five persons.

"I thank the motoring public and all those engaged in controlling road traffic who have assisted my department in securing this wonderful result.”