PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4056, 3 June 1938, Page 4

PEDESTRIAN CROSSINGS.

AN aspect of road safety to which too little attention has been directed -was emphasised by an Auckland magistrate last week when he imposed fines on tw’o motorists for failing to give way at pedestrian crossings, such as have been marked out in the main streets of Te Awamutu. The magistrate insisted, quite properly, that the rights of pedestrians using the crossings must be recognised, and he added that motorists who disregarded the regulations by driving over crossings and “ scattering pedestrians right and left*’ were not to be tolerated. In this matter of road safety in urban areas the motorist lias his responsibilities no less than the pedestrian. It is the latter’s duty to cross busy thoroughfares where safety zones are provided. If he crosses elsewhere he does so at his own risk; and it can be said unhestitatingly in that connection that only the vigilance of the average motorist prevents that risk, in very many cases, from becoming a genuine hazard. At the same time the pedestrian who obeys the rules devised for his protection is entitled to expect the motorist to play his part with equal exactitude. There is a type of motorist w’ho betrays the whole body of his fraternity. He drives always as if he regards a clear road as his unquestioned right. As the Auckland magistrate observed, he insists that the right-of-way is his even when the law requires him to give way. In his dangerous machine he is apt to play the bully, knowing that the pedestrian may not challenge him with impunity. He asks for trouble, and the more he gets of it, in a traffic court, the more likelihood there will be of his acquiring traffic manners.