Dodging Trouble

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 222, 8 December 1927, Page 10

Dodging Trouble

PEDESTRIANS AND MOTORIST

Authorities Reassuring

THIRTEEN THOUSAND motor-drivers hold licences issued by the Auckland City Council, and not all of them can be expected to observe the highest standard of care, bo large a. number must inevitably include a moderate percentage callous of the rights of others, and that explains a suspicion that there has been a slackening in the attention paid to certain by-laws, particularly that which forbids the motorist to pass standing trams;

TN two recent fatal accidents there was a direct suggestion that motorists had failed to halt when a tram ahead w T as stopping, and grave prosecutions were the result. The cases served to illustrate the law’s serious view of any suggestion that a motorist had failed to give trampassengers an open road to alight in, and also tl*e gravity of the risk to which pedestrians in these circumstances are exposed. Probably 50 per cent, of the fatal collisions between motorists and pedestrians happened when the pedestrian walked round the end of a tram into the front of an

approaching motor. Some, of course, have wisely cultivated a habit of perpetual wariness, but there are others who forget the risks of the road, and who may at any time encounter in tragic form the city thoroughfare’s element of constant danger. NOTED BY TRAM MEN Pedestrians have not been alone in noting the growing tendency to overlook or evade the by-law which requires a motorist to stop for a tram halting ahead. Tramwaymen, too, have noticed the slackening of motoring standards, but unless the case is particularly flagrant, or results in an accident, they rarely take the trouble to report the offender. Time was when motorists had the freedom of the road. Emancipated from the days when an attendant with a red flag was required to precede the bus, the man with the machine enjoyed a period when the rules of the road were pleasantly elastic. He could shoot with abandon past a tram—if he

could; but often be could not, for acceleration was sluggish in those days, and in any case the noise of the rackety cylinders was generally sufficient warning of the car's approach. It was with the development ct the silent, powerful car, with its swiftlyflowing acceleration, that the danger was aggravated. Even so, it was not until comparatively recent years that the law introduced a penalty for those who failed to respect a stationary tram, and in the meantime there had been disastrous and fatal accidents. The safety-zone development was a concession to the dangers with which those on foot were menaced, and the success of the zones can be judged from the numbers who now take iefuge thereon.

But it is out in the suburbs, where there are neither zones nor the watchful eye of the city traffic department, that carelessness at the tram-stops takes its most serious form. Some motorists are so inconsiderate of pedestrian rights that they frighten people who stand in the roadway as trams approach. Consequently the nervous prefer to wait until the tram is actually stopping, and they thus leave their rush until just that moment when the hastening car-driver, reluctant to stop, accelerates hotly so that he may pass the tram, and still be within the law.

AS OFFICIALS SEE IT Here are the remarks of some people concerned;—•

Mr. J. A. C. Allum, chairman of the Tramways Committee; Generally speaking, I think motorists are observing the by-laws closely. The City Traffic Department deals firmly with those who do not. A Tram Conductor: Nearly every motorist will pass a stationary tram if he thinks he has a chance of getting away with it. Mr. A. E. Ford, Tramways manager: I do not believe in wholesale prosecutions, but we always take proceedings when flagrant cases are reported by our staff. Mr. G. R. Hogan, chief traffic inspector: We prosecute whenever an information is laid, and have had plenty of piosecutions this year, but I think motorists in general are observing the by-laws well. There may be a tendency for motorists to speed up to pass a car before it stops, which is dangerous. The gentle art of accelerating to pass a tram just starting or just stopping is seen demonstrated at its best by taxi-drivers, bus-men, and eager motorists penned in race-day traffic strings. Every astute motorist knows how to keep one eye on the tram conductor, and the other on the road, so that he can slip by if the conductor is not looking. Part of the t rouble, of course, is Auckland’s amazing lack of by-pass roads. All the main streams of motortraffic are compelled to follow the tram-tracks.