SAFER ROADS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19483, 6 May 1933, Page 12

SAFER ROADS

THE ENGINEER’S PROBLEM. Road and street conditions are better now than they were a few years ago, and numerous hazards are constantly being eliminated. But traffic conditions are changing rapidly. Ten years ago a speed of fifty miles per hour was unusual; now speeds much in excess of that are indulged in by the many motorists. Then there were only a few trucks using the roads: now there are many. Then commercial vehicles were generally limited to single vehicles of small tonnage; now vehicles of great length and weight

the surface wear with solid tires was negligible, the wear with pneumatic tires could obviously be no greater. “The average man, in thinking that heavy truck loads must damage the surface of a well-constructed road, is probably remembering one thing, and forgetting two others. He remembers the state of four weak and in adequately maintained roads during the war. when solid-tired trucks pounded over them night and day in long trains; and he forgets that the pneumatic tire for heavily vehicles has entirely altered their effect upon the highway surface, and that the modern art of highway construction has greatly improved the smoothness and strength of the pavement.”