SAFETY ON ROADS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19335, 27 May 1937, Page 5

SAFETY ON ROADS

ACCIDENT REDUCTION

DOWN BY 45 PER CENT

SUCCESS OF EFFORTS

>'i SCHOOL FOR MOTORISTS

. .(Herald Special Keporter.) ;I '• TE ARAROA, this day. •A".reduction, of 45 per cent in road accident's has followed the Government's safety first measures, according to a 'statement ■ made- by the Minister of Transport, the Hon. R. Semple, to a large , audience when he outlined his intentions of dealing further with erring motorists,- including the establishment of a school where those convicted of by-law offences would be coached before being allowed to drive again. " There were 600 railway crossings on roads in New Zealand. The Government was eliminating them in order of urgency and selected 250 as the most urgent. Over 100 crossings were now being dealt with: "' The eliminations of crossings would cost £1,750,000. ' When. investigating accidents on the highways, ..he. said, he found that 350 people a year were being killed and 4000 makijed; artd many of the maimed would have 6eeh better dead. Nobody seemed to care but the relatives of the slain. If SSO people were killed in a mining disaster, people would be shocked, but we could kill them one by one in lonely places, and no one knew and no one eared. There were not as many people killed by the earthquake in Napier as we were killing every year on the roads. He got busy about this beastly slaughter to tell New Zealand the magnitude of it, because he felt that 90 P«r cent of those tragedies were preventable, i During the last seven years 1250 persons were killed and 35,000 injured as a v result of motor accidents. If all the persons injured in one year were put in hospital at one time they would have occupied half of the beds in all the hospitals in New Zealand. Increase of Penalties

There were three types of motorists on the roads he had no time for. He had dealt with one eort, the hit-and-run - drjyer, who was as extinct as the moa now. The Government had increased the maximum penalties for hit-and-run drivers from £2O or three months to £SOO or five years. He thought there had been only one case, a suspected case, since then. The Government was after the speed hog, and next session would introduce a bill that would be compulsory for magistrates to cancel licenses for good for a second offence for speeding. (Applause.) The intoxicated driver was also being dealt with. He wad not entitled to get "boozed" in this country, get into a high-powered car, and turn it into a potential murderer. "We are after him, too, and we will. clean him up. lam satisfied that in that I have the backing of every Christian man and woman in the country," he added amid applause. "A man who ran amok with a razor was put under observation, and a man who got into a powerful motor car got off with a fine. If he was a dignified citizen, sometimes his name was suppressed. If justices of the peace would suppress such namas, he would amend the: law to forbid justices' hearing such 1 Case's.; Tf a nun was poor or rich he should get the same punishment if he broke the law.

Results of Intoxication- .' During the last seven years, intoxication wa» the principal cause of 175 fatal accidents, and in the same period 2500 persons were convicted ot being in charge of cars. Could any person who appreciated his responsibilities allow that to go on? He would be lacking in his duty if he allowed it to continue, no matter what political party lie belonged to. He had a duty to protect the lives of God's people. He expected the cooperation of all people, no matter to what party they belonged. The* Government had been able to reduce the number of accidents by 45 Eer cent since it came into power, and oped to reduce it to 10 per cent or less.' The Government was also endeavouring to police the roads as they should be policed by,organising a staff of young and cultured New Zealanders. In tHe past in some districts the poundkeeper was the traffic inspector, who went out once a week and caught some person not belonging to the district. The new traffic inspectors were not going to be "pimps" either, but friends of the travelling public. Education Planned ■ The Government was not going in for a system of terrorisation but of education. It was sending out to every home copies of the traffic regulations, and every motorist and citizen would have a Copy. Pedestrians also had a code for using the highways. It boiled down to a duestion of organisation and discipline, balanced with common sense. Another thing he had done instead of fining people for breaking the law was the establishment of schools where motorists brought up for minor offences would have their licenses cancelled ana sent to school to learn the rules of the rofrd, and the probation officer would report when they would be entitled to have their license* back. Fancy dignified citizens going back to school! "We are trying to make the roads as safe as we can. We are taking off bad bends, deviating highways, and spending thousands of pounds," he said V\c nave, more to spend next year to help cope, with this ever-increasing problem. It is going to cost the country a great deaU but the nation will be better oft?--"' - __^____