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La-A T a recent informal meeting of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Mr. Mervyn O'Gorman, C.B., in describing the economic relationship of road and rail traffic, urged a greater appreciation of the value to the community of the great national asset of 180,000 miles of roads, representing a capital of over £1,000,000,000. He claimed that, by reason of heavy taxation and lack of orderliness in traffic movement, the community did not obtain the fullest possible benefit from its road property, although the establishment of cheap internal transport was a vital necessity and would be a great stimulus to the industries of the country. AN interesting comedy has been staged in Melbourne. King Charles II, deciding a point at issue between the City of London and the stage coach owners of the day, decreed that stage coaches could run right into the City and beyond it, provided that they maintained a reasonably direct course, so an enterprising bus owner in Melbourne operates buses between Melbourne and Brighton and Melbourne and Coburg, flouting the stringent antibus regulations in that city, by the simple expedient of calling a bus a stage coach and paying 5s, per year for a stage-coach licence.
The City Council has secured 37 convictions against this bus owner, the fines amounting to £2,000, but, recently, the Supreme Court in Melbourne made an order in his favour that set aside at least one conviction, and it seems likely that pressure cannot be brought to bear to enforce payment of the remaining fines.
STATISTICS regarding the number of persons killed in street accidents in this country during the first nine months of the year show that, as compared with those for the same period last year, there is a considerable and welcome decrease, and it is obvious that iced users are really becoming more careful.
Lieut.-Col. J, A. A. Pickard, general _secretary of the National "Safety First Assocla tion, points out, however, that, to maintain this improvement, extra care is essential at this period of the year, when there are fogs and the roads ale slippery with fallen leaves ; also that it is false economy to run on tyres worn beyond the margin of safety: This, incidentally, is now an offence under the Road Traffic Act.
HITHERTO it has been the apparent policy of the powers-that-be to cut down the number of buses. Recently, however, when a deputation was at the Ministry of Transport, there was. a discussion upon the question of standing passengers, and one official put forward the view that too many standing passengers would reduce the number of buses required and thus adversely affect the revenue from the taxation of vehicles.