Road And Pavement Sense

Northern Advocate, 23 July 1938, Page 15

Road And Pavement Sense

As a motorist used to the orderliness, supervision, and discipline of the roads, you must be impressed, when walking, with the lack of orderliness and discipline on the footpaths. Have you ever considered (hat if those who use the streets on foot thought on the same lines as those who drive, accidents would be fewer (says “Chassis," in the “Dominion"). Amongst other futilities, the practice is to divide pedestrians and motorists into two distinct classes. This is all wrong, as one minute a man may be walking along the pavement, the next be driving a car. He is .still the same man, with the same reactions and the same impulses. Our streets = are bordered by pavements. On the road, motor traffic must conform to the rules of the road; on the pavement the pedestrians run ; wild. In some of our New Zealand cities a year or two ago, a very laudable effort was made to school people to walk on the left side of pavements, and that practice is more or less the general rule. Even a motor driver, when he walks down the pavement, cuts in, bores, and bumps until he reaches his car* parked by the kerb. From the second ho engages the clutch he suddenly comes under the ruling of a hundred laws.

Many of these self-same lawless pedestrians at adult age buy cars and gaily set oft from the kerb into a world over-ridden by restrictions. After a few weeks they may appear to drive well. Maybe they can manipulate a car, but from sheer inexperience they lack road sense. And the accumulation of road sense is hindered because each time they step from running board to pavement they forget all they ever learnt! Try driving mentally while walking. At first it is inadvisable to do it alone. Drive-walking is very interesting. Take a crowded street as your road. Think in terms of cars all the time. Go on a trial run. You turn into a crowded street (pavement) at lunchtime. Now you will get up to the corner a quarter of a mile away without bumping the bumpers or scratching the bodywork. Start off in first. Remember, the only difference in the driving is that you can pass on cither side. As we get up he revs, slip into second, stay there until we are safely round that group of girls gossiping, and then into top. There is a stretch of empty road here and a hill at the end. We shall get up in top if we are not baulked. A woman steps from a doorway. Wo brake, get into second, rev. up, and swing around her to avoid an approaching postman. We shall have to climb in second now. At the top they 'have got a manhole up. Single-line traffic here. We take the inside line as far up as possible and cut in front I of a shopgirl who is reading. Quite | permissible, for her slowness is hold- | ing up traffic. No road sense. Wo j reach the corner safely. When you are at the wheel of your ; car proper you do not go bumping ; into a car in front of you in a traffic | jam, do you? Why? Because the • owner of the vehicle would be nasty, i the police would be nasty, the insur- \ ance people would be nasty, and you would lose your bonus. Well, why bump an elderly schoolmistress in the back when she is waiting to cross at the lights just because she is on the pavement? Answer; Pedestrians neither think nor care. ! There is the idea, concludes “Chas- ! sis.” As a motorist, try it. Induce the non-driving members of your household to learn how the game is played. They may develop real road sense that way.