HIGH SPEEDS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 28, 30 December 1932, Page 6

HIGH SPEEDS

AND UNSUITABLE ROADS. LARGEST CAUSE OF ACCIDENT. (Bv Telegraph. —Special to Standard. ) WELLINGTON, Dec. 30. An official analysis of the cause* which led to 185 fatal motor accidonis for the year ended last March show-: that 37 were directly attributable excessive speed under the circumstances In five cases the speed did not exceed 20 miles per hour in 19 it wa, below 35 miles, and in 13 the speed exceeded 35 miles per hour. That the roads of the Dominion gonerally are not suitable for high speeds is stressed by the Transport Department In the whole Dominion there are over 46 000 miles of formed rural roads, of which 31,000 miles are surfaced and of this total approximately 11,000 miles are main highways. u ‘When the motor vehicle began to assume importance in the land trail'port system, the Dominion states the report, “was in a particularly bar! position to deal with this new form of transport. The rural roaditig system consisted of from 30,000 to 40,000 miles of narrow roads, partly gi as el surfaced, and, as the maximum mileage for minimum cost had been the got - erning factor in road construction the alignment was generally bad, with curves of one chain radius, sudden changes of grade, and narrott br ldges the rule rather than the exception. In other words, the rural roads had been built to accommodate traffic consisting largely of slow-moving horse drawn vehicles, and of a very low density, and were quite unsuited to the fast-moving motor vehicle and the relatively dense road traffic of to-day.” The introduction of the petrol tax and its direct application to road improvement has appreciably lessened danger from this cause, but the position to-day, as officially stated, is that the following general conclusions must be drawn from the present state oi our roading system : ... (1) Generally, the rural roads of New Zealand are quite unsuited for high speeds as regards surfacing, alignment, bridges and protective fences. (2) In order that the risk to the motorist may be reduced, it appears that a definite speed limit should be imposed on all vehicles using rural roads, and rigidly enforced. (3) It will be many years before it will be reasonably safe to allow motor vehicles unrestricted speeds on the rural roads of the Dominion. Though road improvements have been made at a fast pace, the speed of traffic has increased still faster, with the result that the chief highways engineer considers that road danger today is much greater than, say, five years ago. To make the roads safe under such conditions is apparently an impossible task, for, as the same authority expresses the problem: “To bring the primary highways system (6000 miles) up to a standard approximately the same as the present road between Wellington and Napier, via Palmerston North, and to provide twoway bridges thereon, will cost approximately twenty-five millions sterling, and will take 25 years to accomplish at the present rate of expenditure. Even then there will be very many places on the primary system where a speed of thirty miles per hour will be unsafe.”