HEAVY TRAFFIC FEES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 228, 26 August 1932, Page 7

HEAVY TRAFFIC FEES.

AMENDED BASIS OF ALLOCATION.

Per Press Association

WELLINGTON, Aug. 26. In order to avoid expensive litigation in cases where local bodies having control of roads in a heavy traffic district dispute the allocation of license fees amendments to the heavy motor vehicles regulations were gazetted last night. The Transport Department explains that the correct allocation of the fees should be based on the use of the roads by the vehicles for which the ices are paid, and it is, therefore, only necessary to ascertain some _ reasonable measure of use. The most correct method would be a traffic census, but this method would be costly and would show very little saving on the original method. In the circumstances, therefore, it has been decided to adopt the maintenance expenditure as the basis for allocation of the fees, and this expenditure would represent a reasonably close measure of use by motor traffic, assuming that the damago due to climatic conditions is relatively the same in each heavy traffic district. The new amendment provides that when local authorities in any heavy traffic district fail to come to an amicable arrangement as to the allocation of the fees, the Minister of Transport shall determine the allocation on the basis of the relative maintenance expenditure, together with the interest and sinking fund charges on paving loans.