INCREASE OF MOTORS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 110, 9 April 1926, Page 8

INCREASE OF MOTORS.

SYDNEY TRAFFIC DANGERS

A TAXI WAR IN PROGRESS

SYDNEY, April 1

Thero is something of a taxi war m Sydney just now and as it is one of those few occasions when the publi ’• can afford to look clioorful, as far as thoir pockets aro concerned, they ere viewing with interest tho fortunes of the various companies. Tho taxis in tho city streets now aro of almost all the rainbow’s oolours. You have your choice of Yellow cabs, Black and White cabs, Checker cabs and other cabs, while before long Blue cabs and Green cabs threaten to give more splashes of colour to the crowded city. This, of course, is apart from the taxis of all sorts of distinctive colours run by private owners, who must bo feeding keenly the extraordinary incursion of cabs controlled by big and wealthy companies, especially as not a few of the “small’’ men have probably bought their ears ou time payment. The fow hansom-cab drivers who still linger about the streets cut lonely figures. Tho old days when they were the aristocracy of tho transport servico aro gone. It is estimated that one person in every 23 in Now South Wales owns a motor-car or other inotor-vehiclo. To seo Pitt street at night in the neighbourhood of tho theatres, with motorcars of every hue flanking that norrow thoroughfare for the entire length of several blocks, would leavo the impression that not merely ono person in every 23, but everybody in tho place owns a motor. Before very long Sydney pedestrians will want to be many-legged to escape safely tho ever-growing stream of motor traffic in their narrow city streets. To-day, as tho number plates show, there aro cars exceeding 100,000. , Tho traffic department is issuing identification numbers at tho rato of from 700 to 800 a week. This applies only to ordinary private cars and excludes motor-lorries and taxi-cabs.

Incidentally, with the increasing traffic the polico, especially the new torment for motorists known as tho “flying night patrol.” are exercising greater vigilance. On ono day alone recently 145 drivers charged with various traffic offonces appeared at the Police Court; on another day the magistrate had to cope with a rush of more than 200 cases. Motorists who, like Phaeton, do not know how to drive their chariots aro experiencing a bad time in Sydney just now.