Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1914.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10996, 17 July 1914, Page 4

Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. FRIDAY, JULY 17, 1914.

AMONG the many subjects dealt with at the Motor Speeds. Municipal Conference is the taxation of motor cars, and we are pleased to see that, practical steps have already been taken to induce the Governmem to adopt the proposal. The tax has the unique distinction of having no objectors. In fact, it might be asserted that the whole body of motorists are anxious to come under an impost, provided the proceeds are utilised to subsidise the funds for the maintenance and repair of main roads. All admit that, it judiciously expended, the tax will effect a considerable saving in their running expenses. We regret to see, however, that tire conference has allowed itself to be drawn into support of a proposition to secure by legislation a common speed limit for the whole of the Dominion. If such' a law is passed it will suffer a multitude of infractions every day. There are at present notices in some towns which enjoin speeds of from four to ten miles an hour, and nobody heeds them. In the most crowded thoroughfares of the large cities motorists do not comply witJi the regulation, and, judging by the toleration of the authorities, are apparently not expected to do so. It would be far better to leave the question of speeds as it stands at present, which makes it unlawful to drive to the public danger. It is manifest that the matter is one of locality as much as speed. Fifty, or even a hundred miles, an hour upon a lonely road would not be so dangerous to the public (though it might eliminate the road hog) as live miles au hour in a crowded street.

WE trust the. Municipal Conference wil I not Railway Shambles. . adjourn w i t h o u t endeavouring to wring from the Government a promise to renderrailway7 level crossings as safe to users of the road as ifc is possible for them to be. Although the Railway Department has contributed not a few . to the mounds in our cemeteries, with a cynicism and brutality almost inconceivable it has _yet taken no steps to minim se the yearly tale of victims, which grows in volume with the increase of population and the number of people using the roads. The ledst it could Have done would have been to cut away 7 corners, fences and trees’which obscure the approach of trains. But most of the death-traps which have existed for years, and which have contributed their quota to the dead and mangled, still remain. A few days ago the Minister of Railways stated that a satisfactory 7 electrical warning had been devised, but the cost of the apparatus was so great that the Department could only iustal a limited number a year at the most dangerous crossings. That means that the Department is satisfied with preventing a limited number of deaths pier annum. We doubt, However, the costliness of the installation of a simpiie electric alarm, though the Minister probably believes it. It ought to bo as easy 7 to cause a train to ring a warning bell, while still a quarter of a mile away from a crossing, as it is to ring a bell* in the kitchen of a house by 7 pressing a knob at the door, and by I apparatus nearly as cheap. Of

course, if all piossible precautions were taken there would still be the unaccountable and mysterious fraction of tragedies in which pien walk or drive to sudden death with their eyes opien and their faculties apparently alert. These are incidents unexpilainahle by any mental or psychological hypothesis—because it is their fate, or the day of doom for them, or they arc caught by awful tragedy during a momentary 7 lapse of one or other of their sentinel faculties. For these there is no help. But the Department ought to be compelled by au insistent pvablic opinion to do its very best to prevent so many crossings becoming the shambles of the public.