LEAVES FROM THE INSPECTOR'S NOTEBOOK.
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Control and the Escape from It. Obsolete Speed Limits.
As OUR NATIONAL circumstances and, indeed, those of' all belligerent countries become -, more straightened, we accept with remarkable complacence the growing extent of bureaucratic control which the conditions appear to necessitate. We also accept as inevitable the swelling, list of restrictions in the consumption of a . hundred and one things to which in happier days those with adequate means had perfectly free and unfettered access. We accept without a murmur as being unavoidable, and even desirable, our proper meat, iugar, coal, gas and other rations. We learn without a tremor in our daily papers of the control of the price of this finished article and that raw material. limits to prices, which, in many cases, are quite artificial. We are told that we must not use this and that, and that we must cut down our consumption of lighting power. There are an astounding' number of 'things which we may not do at all, all of them restrictions of personal liberty, which we gladly adopt with a view to facilitating the proper economy of our national resources with the sole idea of ultimately forcing the enemy to regard our aims and objects as
just and reasonable ones. •
The war will, of course, end some day, and he who attempts to prophesy as to the date of such a happy release from war-time anxieties and strain is an overbold man. In any case, his estimate can always be safely regarded as being based on data unknown -to any single individual in the whole wide world. But when that day comes (and each day brings it a day nearer) we shall immediately begin to look forward to a period which will lessen our restrictions: It will, of course, as all reasonable folk will recognize readily, be necessary for a long time after peace is declared,' to withhold any relaxation of the control of many of our national circumstances. The world will not recover itself in a day, or in a year, or perhaps even in many years.
While the period of recovery to the new. conditions —which will never be exactly the same as they were of old—is in existence, we shall still have to conform more ,or less to this newly assumed control. But we must. nevertheless, remain very wideamake to the fact that much, if not 'perhaps all, of this restriction must be removed immediately circumstances warrant such action. One can .hardly help feeling a little sceptical as to whether the methods found necessary tO marshal and direct our national energies will ever be -entirely withdrawn, but it is surely up to us to
• ensure in the days that are to come that we are left as free from irksome restriction, relatively, as we were before we all got into uniform.
. If ever there 'were a programme calling for keen consideration and alert Watchfulness on the part of the associations and institutions Which. 'claim as their, raison d'elre the. care of motor interests, here it is ready to hind. The Motor industry as a whole, both from the point of view of the manufacturer and agent, as well as of the user, will be deeply concerned with the return at the earliest, date possible to thenearest approach possible to the status,quo ante bellum. Whether this can best be taken in nand by some new organization of. the kind suggested in the United Motoring Council or by the existing associations gingered into something like plausible activity. I do not feel competent to suggest,.lout there is much anxious work ahead, and it should not surpass the wit of those who direct the huge organizations to which the motor industry has given birth, to find therein ample opportunity to justify their existence and thus to counter the widespread insinuation as to their inutility, which one hears at present on every hand. lathe absence of effective protest, we shall inevitably be ,permanently saddled with much .war-bred " control.'
Obsolete Speed Limits.
I have never seen one of those occasionally mentioned " Z " passes.Judging by the pace at which numberless service cars are driven through the streets, particularly through the parks and similar, open spaces at the present time, they must either be issued with a -;',7ery generous hand, or the possession of them must be taken for granted in a large number of cases, Ivhere they do not exist. The " Z" pass, I understand, gives the holder of it the right to drive at any old pace he thinks fit in pursuance of some special object of national importance. I believe, however, that it does not render him immune from the possibility of trouble should he be found to have driven to the danger of the public, a very necessark stipulation in these daye of licence in so many directions. • .
Possessed of a " Z" pass or not, it is quite obvious, to all, those who haveeyes to see, that war-tithe occupation has quickened our pace all round. Particularly has this occurred in a noticeable manner in the case of the speed' of the motor vehicle on the road. And all this appears to be hIppening while motor transport is seriouSly handicapped by excess of inexperienced drivers, by the presence in our crowded streets of numberless pedestrians and others who are unfamiliar with our traffic rules, by the withdrawal of a great many of our regular police force, and above all by the wicked state of many road surfaces, and by the cessation of public street lighting.
In spite of all these drawbacks it is certainly a fact that. the speed of motor traffic has sensibly increased, and has done so, from all I can hear, without any increased disadvantage in the matter of street casualties. This points to the fact that we are having forced upon us visible proof that there would be little danger in revising, in a very generous manner, speed limits which hitherto have controlled the traffic our highways. Is it not at. least likely that. when, at last, we have done with purely war-time conditions, we shall be forced to the conclusion that. our present speed limits are obsolete and should be very considerably enlarged, if, indeed, they should not be abolished altogether ? Of what use, for instance, is the 12-milean-hour limit to the rubber-tyred steamer or the threeton lorry. Still further, why should the five-tonner be restricted to five miles per hour ?
The 20-mile-an-hour limit for ordinary cars is broken by everyone on occasion, and by a. great many at most times. It should be possible to; relieve our street traffic of these speed conventions, in all but a few well-established cases, for a general limit over bad narrow stretches, providingt always that the penalties for driving to the danger of the public are made sufficiently severe to be a real deterrent to those whom it relight even be desirable to rob of the opportunity to drive at all. Suspension of a licence for a period of, say, five years, for anyone convicted on sufficiently satisfactory evidence of driving to the danger of the public should surely be capable of operation as an effective method of all-round control.