The Hawera Star SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1925. MOTOR SPEED LIMITS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 1 August 1925, Page 4

The Hawera Star

SATURDAY, AUGUST 1, 1925. MOTOR SPEED LIMITS.

Delivered etery evening by 5 o'clock tj Hawera, Manaia Normanby, Okaiawa,' Eltham, Mangatoki. Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyvi'.ie, Patea, Waverley, Mokoia, Wtiakaniara, Obangai, Meremere, Eraser Road, an Ararnta.

The decision of the North Island Motor Union to urge the Government to deprive local bodies of all power to impose speed limits for road and street traffic is sufficiently unusual to provoke comment. Theoretically, the motorists’ case is a, good one. The standard at which they aim is the adequate guarantee of public safety with the minimum of inconvenience and confusion to drivers on the roads. It has to be conceded that the lack of uniformity in traffic by-laws would be a serious worry to motorists if they were in the habit of obeying every “speed limit” placard which confronts them in the course of a long tour. It would be difficult to remember through which boroughs it- is permissable to pass at ten miles per hour, which at twelve, and which at fifteen. But it is to be feared that most motorists treat with a lordly disregard these limits upon their freedom. That is not to say that they .open their engines full out, hunch over the wheel and scorch; but rather that they drive through all towns at what they consider to be a safe and reasonable pace. Quite possibly they are breaking by-laws six times in ten, just as, ninety-nine times in a hundred, they offend by not stopping dead before crossing a railway line. Yet very few of these “law-breakers” are prosecuted, which immunity possibly gives rise -to the thought that it would be better if there were no by-laws at all. It is. an offence under the Police Offences Act to drive to the common danger, and if, without by-laws, public bodies could be sure that every motorist guilty of dangerous driving would be brought to book, the main need for by-laws woijld vanish. But in every case then the responsibility of deciding what was a dangerous speed would fall upon .a Magistrate, who would) have to sift out a wealth of contradictory evidence. The process w-ould be more tedious and —since different Magistrates hold different views—quite as complicated as under the present system. So far as the great body of motorists is concerned, the public has no need of the protecting traffic laws. Not a fixed legal speed limit, but his own common sense and civic responsibility, makes the average man a. safe driver. But, among motorists as everywhere else, there are some wholly devoid of common sense and of any shadow of responsibility. These constitute the menace to other users of the roads and, because of their presence, traffic laws are necessary. The Motor Union does not dispute this; but it seems to feel that the substitution for varying local speed limits of the Bench’s notion of what constitutes driving to the common danger would be an improvement. We cannot just see the position in that light. When speed limits are fixed it should be after careful consideration of what is and what is not a safe rate of travel. In other words, the by-law should represent the conclusion to which a, Magistrate might, reasonably come in deciding the maximum speed reconcilable with public safety. Why, then, sweep away the fixed standard and go through the whole process of setting up a new one every time a case is called ? It may be argued, with justice, that no two cases are exactly parallel, and that a speed safe in a deserted side street at daylight in the morning would be most dangerous in a main thoroughfare at noon. To overcome this it might be desirable to allow some latitude in the interpretation of the law, although the police and traffic inspectors can usually be trusted not to lay informations needlessly. There is room, too, for some measure of uniformity in traffic by-laws; and this is a matter to which the Municipal and Counties’ Associations might devote more attention. But, before any attempt to abolish speed limits can succeed, more convincing arguments than those hitherto used' must be brought forward.