ACCIDENT RESPONSIBILITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18577, 8 December 1923, Page 12 (Supplement)

ACCIDENT RESPONSIBILITY.

We regret to fee that som-i of the responsible writers cd til© motor press have accepted the principle that (he responsibility of a driver for his acts varies with the importance of the particivar piece of road on which he ia travelling. That is not the usual vnanusr in which <*no situation is described, bat that is what il is in essence, says the Field. We do not believe that a policy of mitigated responsibility for main road traffic drivers, and full. responsibility for all others is going to make our roads any safer for the ! public. We pin our faith to equal responsibility and a thorough system of warning signs. There is no oasy way round this trouble, and that is just all that the right of way for main load traffic amount* to. It. suits the departmental mind because it looks clever ,md riears it of all further responsibility. If main road traffic travels so fast as to make accidents inevitable it is the task of the police to curb it. If secondary road traffic is -unable to avoid collisions with main road traffic, the onus is on the former to do so, and nothing remains to tie said. Really the plan was born at the same time a3 the Ministry of Transport, and was one of these brain waves, by which it v.as sought to demonstrate the wider possibilities of road goods transport as a relief for railways that was considered incapable of meeting post-war transport requirements in commerce and industry. So long as road goods transport is restricted to 20 miles an hour the railway is so superior in speed, and so much more; reliable and and convenient owing to its elaborate complex and efficient" system of collection and delivery, that the visions necessary to a Ministry of Transport co-ordinating traffic by rail, road, and water could not, be justified. Some genius, therefore, conceived the abolition of .epeed limit's on main roads, and to justify that proposed to relieve main road traffic .of the onus of avoiding collisions with traffic impinging on it from other roads. This appealed with convincing force to drivers most of whose time at the steering wheel is spent on main roads, and probably at I high speeds, and so the motoring movement looks like being lulled into accepting a vicious principle, the effect of which is more likely to be disaster than security, and certainly will bring a wider and dearer dislike of motor traffic: in its train. If the speed limit is going to be removed let it be removed from all roads, and instead of relieving main road traffic of any responsibility for the result- of its" speed, make the responsibilities all round equal but more serious, and punish offenders with rigour. Most of the traffic dangers of the open road are due to over speed-, ing combined will carelessness or thought' lessness. Some danger there must always be. It is the inevitable price of progress, and mu«t be accepted, but, as we have said, it is not wise to make distinction between similar acts. If main road traffic is absolved from all responsibility for collision with side load traffic, one can imagine what certain main roads j wi'l be like in a very short while. j