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" Safety First" in the Darkness : Helping Traffic Improves Distribution and Lowers Prices.

14th December 1916
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Page 1, 14th December 1916 — " Safety First" in the Darkness : Helping Traffic Improves Distribution and Lowers Prices.
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Keywords : Nottingham

The campaign, led by Mr. H. E. Blain, to inculcate traffic sense in the masses, which has been ably and insistently initiated in the Metropolis, is to be further extended 'by wisely-invited co-operation with urban and other public authorities. The commercialvehicle industry is very specially interested in these efforts, and for this reason amongst others. We are approaching a point in our affairs as a nation when we shall have to carry on our civilian activities with 'the very minimum of as-sistance of the best and most efficient kind. Every day we shall have to "make do" on an increasing scale, and each day we must continue to release the maximum number possible of individuals, to contrive that we carry on with as little human aid as we can, to see to it that what machinery we have is employed to the utmost, and that laboursaving devices are made adequate substitutes for the human effort we have combed out. In few ways can this be achieved more successfully than by improving our domestic or internal transport. Transport is indeed the life of trade, as it is of war. The briskness of our circulation is a measure of our efficiency as a nation. Our national pulse cannot be fast enough, if we are unable to fetch and carry for national as well as domestic needs. On the sea, there are others who will see to it ; on land, the railways and our own industry are most intimately concerned. The Government may soon " take over" the larger motor-haulage contractors.

The motorvan and the motor lorry must increasingly be relied upon as our human resources dwindle. And this at a time when, in all but daylight, the streets are 'becoming hourly more perilous. The campaign to educate the public to take care of itself in the streets, upon which the L.G.O.C. has spent so much time and money, is now one of increasing national importance. The roadways must be used more and more as the war proceeds, and the traffic in the Metropolis and in many of our big industrial and military centres must of necessity increase. The growing toll of after-dark accidents may well check this development if " Safety First" admonitions are disregarded. To drive in towns at the present time is a task to unnerve the most-skilful driver. What it must mean to those who have only held the wheel for a few short weeks, it. is difficult to conceive. Everything that can be done to insist on the public caring for itself must be done and done quickly. The " Safety First" campaign and its newly-expanded programme calls for all support from our industry as a whole, if for no other reason than that of selfinterest.

There are many suggestions that may be made for the new Committee's investigations, and no doubt our readers will be able to add new ones. For instance, why should not temporary light wooden bridges, sufficiently if dimly illuminated, be erected over all danprous crossings ? If other considerations of nubile safety do not admit this—as, for ex

ample, on the grounds of interference with fireescape ladders, why not insist on pedestrians only crossing streets at properly-indicated points? We have often asked for this reform. Again, why not a simple system of green and red signalling to control after-dark traffic in all busy thoroughfares? These and many other suggestions will occur to anyone who is concerned to make the streets safe.

After-dark traffic must be more effectively organized. Permissible lighting intensity should be a matter of national regulation, and not left to the wiseacres of each parish. The public must be instructed not to walk in suburban roads. Kerbs must be whitened, to avoid compulsory loitering by pedestrians who seek,,them. In short, there is much important work before the "Safety First" Council— work far more important than any concerning the problem of traffic m peace time. Street traffic must be encouraged as we transfer our man-power. There is a truly-appalling list of street casualties being compiled.We must not stop our traffic. We must educate and protect the pedestrian. Food and vegetables are already too dear, and the latter being thrown away, in London, for want of transport. While shopkeepers in Kensington, but three miles from Covent Garden, say "we cannot obtain brussels .sprouts and cabbages," these very vegetables are unsaleable in the great market. Why ? For lack of transport, very largely. In part, too, because the shopkeeper is ready to sell half quantities at double prices ! All " safety first" efforts will facilitate traffic and 'by such improvements will help all distribution, thus reacting upon inflated prices.

Motorbus or Tramcar ?

The Edinburgh Corporation recently authorized the publication of a report upon the tramways system of the City of Edinburgh. This report, which is a joint one by Mr. John A. Brodie, M.Inst.C.E., city engineer of Liverpool, Mr. J. B. Hamilton, general manager of the Leeds Corporation Tramways, and Mr. A. Horsburgh Campbell, burgh engineer of Edinburgh, has only been published a few weeks.

The report largely deals with proposals for coupling up a new. system of tramways in Edinburgh with neighbouring tramways in and around Leith and Musselhurgh. It further purports to deal with the possibilities of motorbuses, although we cannot agree that this branch of the inquiry has been made either completely or exhaustively. We extract elsewhere in this isste (pages 332 to 336) the report of the tramcar experts upon the claims of motorbuses, and we intersperse those extracts with comment. The framers of the report suggest that there must be a net deficit of £15,652 per annum on the working of any motorbus system, but they are careful to modify this estimate, no doubt for their own protection, by the somewhat-equivocal qualification that it would only apply to the "first years of operation," whatever that may mean. They estimate a further loss, in respect of assessment to local rates, as compared with a new tramway system, of 213,773 per annum, and that extra wear and tear upon the highways which form the motorbus routes will amount to at least £4000 per annum. It is thus held over the heads of Edinburgh ratepayers that the adoption of motorbuses will represent to them, compared with the introduction of tramcars, a total loss of £39,425 per annum. These estimates are pure hypotheses, and we indicate some of the fallacies.which underlie them in the course of the. comment which. we make elsewhere. Readers with motorbus experience will be amazed to observe the extraordinary manner in which the estimates have been prepared : we refer inter alio, to the omission of any reference to the number of motorbuses to which the report is supposed to refer, the failure to mention the greaterroute-mileage which such vehicles must serve, and above all to the inclusion in the motorbus capital expenditure of an unenumerated "watering item" for "taking up tramways and restoring and repaving road surfaces." Why load the motorbus undertaking with this heavy item? The free-running vehicle can travel on the existing roads, without taking up the tramlines, unless the suggestion is baldly made for the purpose of showing an unfavourable result financially. The Edinburgh City Council will do well, we think, to call for an independent report concerning motorbus probabilities from men who have had real experience with modern vehicles on a scale comparable with that with which their

i city s concerned. We are obliged to condemn the present report as one-sided. It appears to us deliberately to seek to make the case for the motorbus a bad ,one.

A Munitions Journal of Interest To Our Own Industry.

What may perha-pa be described as the most remarkable " house" journal that has yet left the printing-press, is the new "Ministry of Munitions Journal," a. copy of the first issue of which we have recently been privileged to examine. It is intended for publication during the period of the war' • and if that be so we shall all wish it an early end. But from another point of view we hope this latest recruit to national service may enjoy a career long extended after the war-founded Ministry has shrunk to a peace basis.

That the Ministry as an organization will cease to exist when the present war is over is unlikely in the extreme. Its jurisdiction will be different, but it will have years of " clearing up " before it ; it is to be expected that one permanent function will also be to ensure that never again are we caught unclassified, unregistered and unready, industrially speaking. The "Ministry of Munitions Journal may well then become a. permanency, a Government organ for interchange of information and the rapid circularization of subsidized and registered firms. "On the Ministry of Munitions List" will, it is to be hoped, mean something more than did "On the War Office List" in our smug, self-satisfied, peace-behushecl days. .

The Editor of this new Departmental organ has no mean task in present circumstances. His it is to disseminate information that will speed up outputs in spite of rapidly-increasing difficulties of labour and material, and he has to do this knowing full well the risk he rune that one or more of his copies may reach unfriendly hands. The circulation, to be useful, must be wide and yet not, in the proper sense, public. Our own industry is overwhelmingly absorbed at present with munitions responsibilities, and its members will be recipients of the Journal on a considerable scale. The first issue reveals the practical journalistic hand. We are convinced that further numbers will be of very considerable value to those who are concerned, and they may be numbered by the thousand.

020

We wish the effort well ; it is testimony to the uttlity and efficacy of the Press as a -whole that the Ministry now has its own journal. Its readers are urged to treat it with the discrimination for which the Editor asks, and to take every care that it only comes into the hands-of those who may be trusted to guard against its contents making leakage enemywards. It is a risk ; we, therefore, seek to assist its Editor by an additional appeal for care of each copy. We are convinced of its utility, and that very fact makes it certain that those who are not our friends must derive equivalent benefit were they able to secure access to the contents. See to it, we enjoin our reader-recipients, that they cannot.

Exemption for Commercial Motor Drivers.

We dealt with the current list of Certified Occupations (Form R.105), dated the 20th November, in our issue for the 23rd of that month. We thought we had then made it amply clear (page 271 ante), that there, had been a marked change in the regulations concerning drivers of commercial motors who are employed other than in certified trades. Whereas in the earliest lists the general exemption applied to "others, in all trades, not engaged in collecting from or delivering to private houses," the new general exemption reads others, in all trades named in this Nil of certified occupations, not engaged in collecting from or delivering to private houses" (with a minimum age of 30 for single men, or 25 for mar-, rind men). Owners of commercial motors who seek exemption for their driven, and whose trades are not in the list of certified occupations, will have to make their appeals on other grounds, or, in the case of steam wagons and tractors, to claim for their drivers as" engmemen," and their second men as "stokers."

Compensation for Owners of Motor Chars-a-bancs.

The likelihood of compensation for owners of motor chars,-à.-baneshas, in our judgment, been materially weakened by the decision of the Home Office to recognize the use of petrol substitutes, and not to hold them barred by the Order in Council of the 18th August last. This limits the period of damage to owners of motor chars-a-basics to one month of active use, and a few additional weeks of occasional use in their usual category, i.e., for passenger-carrying purposes. The actual order of events, concerning the assistance to char-a-banes owners by the C.M.U.A.. may, however, be briefly traced by us. It can be outlined as under.

Application to the Defence of the Realm Losses Royal Commission drew a reply that any general interference by such an Order was usually held to put the parties who suffered outside the right to claim compensation, although it did not absolutely exclude consideration for special cases ; the C.V.-C.A. was advised in any event to see that any claim was lodged through the Department of the Government that was responsible for the interference. It took a long time to find out who was responsible ; the Petrol Control Committee returned one claim, and said it was not concerned. An appeal to the late Premier, the Rt. Hon_ H. H. Asquith, M.P., produced a communication to the effect that the Petrol Control Committee was responsible, as a branch of the Board of Trade. The appeal on behalf of a member, when again presented to the Board of Trade, was sent on to the Defence of the Realm Losses Commission, although the C.M.U.A. was not advised as to the accompanying comment of the Department—if any.. There the matter stands.

We may incidentally remark that it took the C.M.U.A. a considerable time to secure particulars from any member in the shape of a test case. Several char-a-ba.acs owners, Who had put foward grievances in -general terms, furnished no financial particulars when pressed.


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