HEAVY HAULAGE TRAFFIC.

Marlborough Express, Volume XL, Issue 6, 8 January 1907, Page 3

HEAVY HAULAGE TRAFFIC.

INEFFECTIVE REGULATIONS

The three members of the Omaka Road Board who attended the monthly meeting-yesterday expressed, in'the course of an irregular discussion of the whole heavy haulage taxation question, their unanimous determination to insist on the Board's regulations being observed, as from the New Year, One member said that ever since the license fees had been imposed, together with the. other regulating conditions, the Board had been busy passing resolutions to suspend those regulations in respect to one or other section of the travelling, public. It was pretty generally, admitted that some of these suspensions were ultra vires, and could not bejctegally sustained—particularly the Gii© exempting the Board's own ratepayers, plying within its district, from the payment of the heavy haulAge fee..,,.,".-- :'.-:.. ■.-■. ; .- .-. .. .. . The ! Chairman (Mr Houldsworth) said he^was quite convinced tEe Board was -being dep" rived of many pounds sterling per. annum through, owners of waggons,.neglecting to attach their names and the number of their licenses to thervehicles. : '

What-was there (asked Mr Bary) to prevent, one: owner running three different wag£ons,built and painted alike, and.declaring-each time he was stopped by "the Board: that the waggon was-the same one? The regulation requiring the affixing of the distinguishing opiate was looked up, and! it-was fourid to be, nominally at least, in -'frill.--force,..with.a penalty provided not exceeding £iO for each and every Vlay fchetp_h\te was not affixed. MiV'McKay said the book of regulations, was.-.of: no earthly use, for the LBoafdfhad^erif.orced- nothing. Mr Bary. said that last year £400 rhadrbeen collected "out of that book."

The members .of- the Board present mere> "favourable to the exemption of Ilocalrtraffic: altogether, but not to the up-keep~^&f a rroad for'the use of the • Pelor,us-timber traffic. The Board had .recently taken a tally of all the traffic passing "down the Middle Road, and 'TQiuxa that almost everything, above a ijaorse;'an"d traptin iweight—to wit, waggons -.with six <or .eight horses—had neither .come from- across :the river (the Pelorus district) ( or ;the Wairau Road JBoaracaistiict.

Mr McKay's [idea was that .the tolljgate system was the ;best, because the ,actual iusers of the roads woiild be •«aught;and dharged towards itsmain■tenance. Let the Board take this ;reme~dy—rleave the Middle Road :.to get unto such a:bad state through the^pass:ing ;of timber waggons that this class <of traffic would .be driven off it on to vfcheoather routes*

The 'Chairman replied that the connteriience <t>f the Board's own ratepayers .woulfl then suffer. Why Should! Ihorseranfl trap, 'bicycle and pedestrian: ♦traffic ;be penalised for the sins <6f the' tiniber-waggon? They could do no| good (discussing the matter further.: ■IHxenbaitiile.^hadibeeji fought already in! ±Tiat it-oom & thousand times; and, dni s»y case, lie could not allow a reso'lu-1 «wm to :he passed without a full meet-;