FARCE OF TESTING

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12093, 21 March 1925, Page 14

FARCE OF TESTING

ABOLITION SUGGESTED. Why hot eliminate forever the examinations carried out by local authorities by way of testing drivers for their competency to handle motorvehicles? (says the Christchurch “Sun.”) The whole business is a farce as complete as one could wish it. As far as the Christchurch City Council is concerned, these examinations are made j because the authorities believe in taki ing some steps to safeguard the hapless pedestrian and other drivers. But the council will receive no payment for the eervioe after April Ist. By taking the registration of cars out of the hands of local bodies the Government has made sure of collaring the remunerative part of the work and leaving the dirty- work, so to speak, to the local bodies. No attempt has been made to do anything regarding the testing of drivers. ' One must be thankful that such is the oase,. as, considering the frightful bungle made over registration alone, the Government might have expected every driver to go to Wellington to be tested.

But the laxity to be found regarding testing as at present is ridiculous. With the City Council one may have a hill or a flat ticket, but a man who was tested by the Heathcote County Council inspector recently was told that he shouldn’t worry about only a flat ticket. So the rather nervous applicant who didn’t think he could survive a hill test went courageously through with it, and passed on hill and flat. The easy tests to whioh motorists are submitted in the county districts has led dozens of novices to drive out to where the going is easy. Such drivers are taken a ri und of a block of traffic-free country road, and then obtain a certificate of competency to drive anywhere on earthIs such a driver always competent to -pass safely along our traffic-ridden streets? What do they know of bylaws, signalling by hand, and the rules of the road? A motorist stated that a friend oi his called at a certain county office where a wome.n issued the certificates. He was asked if he had been on a certain trip, and told a lie about it. Subsequently he drive the clerkess around the block, and received his ticket. Oases have come under notice where motorists who have failed to pass the city test have driven out to a county council office and obtained a “pass.” So it is that there is often a fool driver round a corner to smash up your new ’-bus, and, after all, are certificates of ability worth tbe paper they are printed onP