CORRESPONDENCE

Hutt News, Volume 9, Issue 15, 18 September 1935, Page 5

CORRESPONDENCE

(To the Editor)

Sir,—The Lower Hutt Borough Council, at its last meeting, decided not to prosecute some thirty cyclists who rode their bicycles on bitumen roads where cycle tracks are provided. The reason given was that there was no notice up stating that, cyclists were to use the •track. Is this the real reason why the council is not taking action? If it is, does the council propose to refund the fines which have already been paid by those cyclists who did not previously comply with its bylaws'? In admitting the danger of the cycle track in Kailway Avenue, the council lias unwittingly admitted the danger of all other cycle tracks when they are only on one side of the road. A cyclist must always cross the lines of traffic twice if such track is on his off side—obviously a most dangerous proceedings, as I have pointed out on previous occasions.

It is stated by the council that althought there will be no prosecutions in the present instance, there will be no lightening of the restrictions with regard to rear reflectors and white rear mudguards. The council must knowthat. red rear reflectors are compulsory by law, and that white rear mudguards are not. This is a matter entirely for Government legislation and neither the Lower Hutt Borough Council nor any other local body has authority to interefere with either the Motor lobulations or the Lights o'i Vehicles Act, both of which deal adequately with the position. If however, the council is sincere in its intentins, why does it not make a start by cleaning up its premises? Every night, in the King George Theatre, there are scores of bicycles which have either white mudguards and no rear reflectors, or rear reflectors and no white mudguar s. Many of these machines have no hcul'lights. Some of their owners carry torches, but others don't. I have often seen a policeman in Lower Hutt ridng a bicycle which has no white rear mudguard. Does the council intend to prosecute him I have seen a borough councillor riding a bicycle without a white rear mudguard. Where is the council going to begin.' And what is it going to do about the hundreds of bicycles which haven't got mudguards at all? I have never yet seen a racing bicycle with a white rear mudguard, and the council allows cycle racing through the main street. Do racing cyclists use the cycle track in High Street? And it' not. how can the council expect its own ratepayers to use it? The llrinciple of separate tracks for cyclists is entirely wrong. A bicycle is a vehicle just as a motor-car is a vehicle, and its owner pays rates just as a motor-car owner pays. The road belongs not to one section of the coniniuitv, l.mt <o al) the community. Personally. 1 have never ridden a bicycle on any of the cycle tracks within the Lower Hutt borough boundary, and I. have no intention of doing so. This fact was well known to at lca<t two members of the previous council, as was also the fact that my rear mudguard was, and still is, as black as a nigger. Mv machine, however, complies with the law in every respect — ALIPED MILNK. . Cyclists' Touring Club.