TRAFFIC CONTROL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 17 December 1947, Page 8

TRAFFIC CONTROL

REFORM_ URGED SPECIAL POLICE BRANCH ADEQUATE ROAD PATROLS (P.A.) AUCKLAND, Dec. 16. A commission of inquiry into New Zealand traffic control; the transfer of all traffic officers to a special branch of the Police Department; and the overhaul of the traffic regulations were advocated by Mr. J. IL Luxforu, Senior Stipendiary Magistrate in Auckland, in an address to the Auckland Rotary Club. “I have stated from the Bench, and I repeat here, that the standard of driving has deteriorated and is deteriorating,” said Mr. Luxford. “By the standard of driving—l do not mean the skill of the drivers has deteriorated. Indeed it. has improved to a marked degree especially. among that large body of men who drive service cars, buses and commercial vehicles. It is the too-frequent misuse of their skill to which I am referring, and the same applies to many private drivers. Now a Social Problem “Motor traffic in New Zealand has become a social problem. The yearly toil of killed and injured continues and the material damage caused is terrific. Very few people realise how large is our yearly bill for the repair of damage resulting from motor accidents. 1 only wish insurance companies would publish annually details of accident claims paid by them alone. I am certain they would shock the public. The whole trouble lies in inadequate policing of our highways,” Mr. Luxford continued, “and in the inadequacy. of the penalties imposed on offending drivers. Work of Police “The time has arrived for the setting up of a commission of inquiry to examine the whole system of control. Many local bodies control traffic in their respective areas. In others officers of the Transport Department control traffic hut the police do the real work, because they investigate accidents. Under the present system nearly every prosecution for breaches of the rules of the road and for dangerous or negligent driving is the result of police investigation after an accident has been reported to them. “Control, to be effective, must catch the dangerous driver and (he negligent driver irrespective of whether an accident results or not. That should be obvious, but I have heard a lawyer urge as a reason for imposing a light penalty the fact that no collision took place or that only slight damage was done.” Under Police Commissioner. Mr. Luxford said that the inadeauacy of road policing would disappear if all local body and Transport' Department traffic inspectors were transferred to the Police Department and traffic control for the Dominion came under the Commissioner of Police. “Every traffic inspector on patrol duty should have a vehicle equipped with a moving picture camera in the same way as fighter aircraft were equipped during the war. That would put a stop to the well-intentioned lying that we hear so often in traffic cases,” he stated. “And also to the honest lying of the motor di’iver who subconsciously reconstructs the scene on the basis that he could not have been in the wrong.

“If a commission of inquiry was set up, Mr. Luxford concluded, one of its main tasks would be to overhaul the traffic regulations. They must be simple and effective, understandable and understood,” he said. “Nobody can say that the most important of all the rules of the road, the right-hand rule, is either simple, understandable or understood.”