MOTOR LICENSING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23259, 31 January 1939, Page 10

MOTOR LICENSING

NEW WELLINGTON OFFICE INCREASE IN REGISTRATIONS [by telegraph —OWN correspondent] WELLINGTON, Monday Having outgrown the accommodation in the General Post Office, the motorvehicles registration branch of the General Post Office has been transferred to the new building of the Government Life Insurance Office, Wellington. When the work of motor-vehicle registration began in 1924 there wero approximately 90,000 vehicles on the record; tl;o latest total is 330,000. New Zealand is second only to the United States of America as the greatest, motor-using community in the world. The United States, according to recont figures, has one vehicle for every four of population, and New Zealand's proportion is one for every six; motorvehicles a road mile number 9.3 in the United States and 3.4 in New Zealand.

Detailed information about every registered motor-vehicle in the Dominion is contained in the records at headquarters, and motor ownership in New Zealand is now so extensive that the card index of all licences, and the files relating to every vehicle on tho register, occupy two long lines of cabinets extending from front to back of one of Wellington's largest buildings. As there are 357 registration centres distributed throughout the Dominion for tho convenience of motorists, the records are decentralised to a great extent. However, tho motor-vehicle has so wide a range that a national register is essential to secure prompt and complete information about individual vehicles.