SPEED ON ROADS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19860, 25 July 1934, Page 11

SPEED ON ROADS

NATIONAL LIMITS PROPOSED. By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, July 24. The Transport Department Issued to-day draft proposals containing important amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act, dealing with the regulations of motor and other traffic in relation to the motor traffic. The proposals will be circulated to the various local authorities and organisation for consideration. The Commissioner said it would appear that discipline was highly essential in order to secure a measure of safety, and that a national policy on the question of speeds could be laid down somewhat along the following lines:— (a) Dustless rural roads.—Driving to the common danger. (b) Boroughs and Townships.—A statutory speed limit of 30 miles an hour. (c) Power to make regulations or bylaws to meet exceptional circumstances with the Minister’s prior consent. In most cases the prescribed signposts would be essential. A general speed limit of 30 miles an hour was proposed for motor cars drawing trailers. This would follow somewhat the practice in Great Britain. The table of speeds laid down for heavy vehicles under the heavy lorry regulations would not be altered in any way by the above-mentioned proposals, as the speeds for heavy traffic are formulated under another statute. “So far as the regulation of other forms of vehicular traffic is concerned,” said the Commissioner, “the recent Court case involving the offside rule went to show the danger of confusion unless some of the fundamental motor traffic rules were applied to other traffic on the roads. The position now Is that while, for instance, motorists must give way to all traffic approaching from the right, there is no legal responsibility on drivers of other kinds of vehicles or on push cycles to follow the same practice. It is the intention, if the proposals are approved, to require the white painting of portion of a bicycle and the fixing of a red reflector visible to traffic approaching from the rear of dimensions and a design which must be approved and gazetted. * Cycle Traffic. “It would appear essential also that some attention should be directed to bicycle traffic on the roads, as there can be no doubt that grave danger is created by the practice of several cyclists riding abreast. On roads and streets covered with dark pavements this practice is extremely dangerous, particularly in wet weather after dark, when drivers of motor vehicles are subject to dazzle by oncoming traffic. The closest collaboration with local authorities would be observed in framing regulations for the fixing of crossing places for pedestrians and the control of road traffic in their areas.”