TOLL OF THE ROAD

Taranaki Daily News, 22 February 1935, Page 14

TOLL OF THE ROAD

A HORE-BELISHA APPEAL. “BE CAREFUL, COME HOME ALIVE.” . (By “Spotlight.”) Since he assumed the office of Minister of Transport in England Mr. Leslie .HoreBelisha has adopted revolutionary methods in an endeavour to improve motoring conditions generally. Safetyfirst has been his principal aim and to achieve his objective he has resorted to means that have met with stern criticism. However, his most ardent opponents will admit that many of his so-called “stunts are really worth while. How many men would have considered enlisting the aid of women in a campaign to check the growing toll of the road? The new minister did and succeeded in receiving much valuable publicity as a result. “This mass murder on the roads must stop and it can only be done by an awakening of the public conscience,’ he remarked on one occasion when he was considering drastic plans to reduce the number of accidents which were occurring weekly. His returns for the week ending July 7, 1934, showed that motor accidents were responsible for 180 deaths and nearly 6,000 people were injured. “I appeal to every woman in Britain, to say to her husband and son every morning before they leave for office or workshop: ‘Be careful—come home alive. ’ said Mr. Hore-Belisha in launching his campaign. “Women can play a tremendous part in bringing home to the imagination of their menfolk their responsibility on the road. Through such methods as these I hope eventually to create a natural instinct for road-carelessness. I am considering mapy plans for saving life, but my plans will go astray unless I am assured of the co-operation of all road-users. I want pedestrian crossings everywhere but even more I want to fire the imagination of the public. I want to bring home to them the story of suffering and grief that lies behind the bare statistics of road accidents. I want to infuse into everybody a spirit of consideration and cautioll* , . X “I can make regulations but of what earthly use are they unless I have the backing of a willing public? I know regulations are irksome, but after all the Ten Commandments are regulations and ‘Thou Shalt not kill’ is one of them. “I look forward confidently to the help of every Tom, Dick and Harry, every’ Harriet and Jane—for are they not all road-users? The Press and the police have played their parts—now it is up to the public. The Press are continually bringing home to the public the tragedy of road fatalities. The police are playing a valuable part by practical traffic control. But it is the public who count most.” When Mr. Hore-Belisha made these remarks he was appealing to the vast travelling public of England. However, his appeal is applicable to this Dominion, where the toll of the road is, to a lesser degree, only too great. “Be careful: It is better to lose minutes than to lose lives,” is the slogan that all are asked to remember. IN THE HOLY LAND - ■yr. EXCITABLE NATIVE DRIVERS. PASSENGERS’ PRECARIOUS LOT. For a whole decade, now, It is true, Western methods have been introduced into the Holy Land. But blood is thicker than petrol, arid the character of the inhabitants, whether catael drivers or car drivers, will out, declares the writer of an article in the Commercial Motor. The bus drivers, for Instance, are a cheerful and sociable race, but they have an unfortunate habit of carrying on an excited conversation with a passenger while the bus is travelling at 30 miles an horn:. If only they would talk with their mouths alone, one could relax in one’s seat. But the fearsome part of it is that they talk with their hands, too. If you watch a bus-driver in conversation with a passenger you will see his hands lift from the steering-wheel and make eloquent and meaning gestures. This sort of thing may make for sociability, but not for safety. Sometimes it happens that the vehicle ought to be steered to the left-hand side of the road, but the driver’s hands are to the right of the steering-wheel, because that is where the last argument has left them. Once,’ when driving along a thoroughfare, the writer nearly collided with an oncoming steam roller. On glancing back, just after his narrow escape, he observed the driver of the steam roller earnestly conversing with a pedestrian who was trotting alongside. The driver was half-way out of his seat, with his head close to the face of the pedestrian, and with both hands he was sternly enforcing his argument. Now the Palestine Automobile Club is distributing thousands of safety-first bills with adhesive backs. In Palestine, bus-drivers have a profound contempt for the desert air. Once, when driving in the Galilee Plains in the wake of nine touring coaches, the writer and his companions were nearly suffocated from the dust thrown up by their predecessors. The drivers did not dream of slowing down, but rushed pell-mell through the sand and dust, just as though they were driving on a good modem asphalt road. Their passengers, it was learned afterwards, were ingrained with dirt and their clothing and the interiors of the coaches were inches thick with dust. . As for noise—well, Piccadilly Circus or Tower Bridge is a silent cemetery compared with a main road in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. A driver will start at one end of a street and hoot his way down to the other end, just to let people know that he is there. He is .not, however, always to be blamed, for jaywalking” is an affliction from which all Palestine suffers. People spread out over the roadway, oblivious of everything but their own talk, and only incessant hooting can clear a bare path through them. We recently learned, however, that, a law is to be enforced “which prohibits drivers of stationary vehicles from tooting their horns to attract fares or to announce their impending departure.’

The National Physical Laboratory at TeSdington has proved to its own satis, faction, that using coloured does not make a headlamp more effective m fog, except that it diminishes. the penetration of the ray and_ so brings about an improvement in vision. In other words, a slightly less, brilliant white light is just as good. ‘‘The use ot coloured beams for driving under conditions of fog has no advantage. is from the report which was issued by the International Illumination Congress at Birmingham and Cambridge in 1931.