HEAVY TRAFFIC

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 101, 31 May 1930, Page 6

HEAVY TRAFFIC

Per Press Association.

AMENDMENTS TO LICENSING REGULATIONS. LIMIT OF MULTI-AXLED LORRY.

WELLINGTON, Last night. An Order-in-Council ivas te-day signed by his Excellency the _ GovernorGeneral effecting the following amendments to the Motor Lorrv Regulations, which deal with the protection of roads from heavy traffic and the taxation. of such traffic. The licenses issued on paynient of the taxes are at present annual, and the applicant is entitled to pay his fees in four quarterlv instalmeuts. Thus he is ahle to obtajn a license for a fall year on the payment of one quarter's fee. Local authorities have objected to this as increasing their diffieulties of administration, and therefore provision is made that in future a quarter's license fee will entitle the owner only to a quarter year license. As owing to the recent political liappenings delay has occurred in the issue of the Order-in-Council, a clause is included so that where licenses have already been issued no change thereto will be necessary, if the applicant bas paid his fees for tlie full term of the license. It is already the law that the motor vehicle known as the "six-wheeler" may be used on first-elass roads, although weighing up to 15 tons gross, and tlie Order-in-Council is intended to make cleaj- that the modern type of six-wheeler (what is known as tne rjgid type) may, if of a class approved by tlie Minister, be included in the saine law similarly on roads classified lower than the first-class. The multiaxled motor lorry, as these types are called, will be entitled to a corresponding increase over tliat limit to which tbe two axle-machine is bound. Tbe gross weight limits for third and fourth-class roads are altered from 6 tons and 4 tons to 6£ tons and 4£ tons respectively, these being the limits for two-axled machines on those classes of roads. The present classifications impose a handicap on vehicles manufactured in England, and the alteration is designed to remove that anomaly. It is provided that tlie total weight of the vehicle and its load, which is borne by any one axle, sball not exceed 6. tons in the case of a multi-axled machine and 8 tons in any other case, and the steering axle must carry at least IS per cent. of the total i^eight of fche vehicle and its load. This amendnient is partly a precautionary one resulting from the foregoing provisions relating to multi-axled machines. It is understood tliat the foregoing amendments are regarded by'tlie Government as being urgently required, and that tliey have either been advocated or agreed to by the majority of local bodies. It is learnt that a coniplete review of the regulations is now well under way, and that they will shortly be issued in draft form for consideration by local bodies and others coiicerned consolidated and with many other amendments.