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Incomplete Criteria : the Insufficiency of Speed or Unladen Weight.

29th April 1909, Page 2
29th April 1909
Page 2
Page 2, 29th April 1909 — Incomplete Criteria : the Insufficiency of Speed or Unladen Weight.
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The Chief Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis has under review just now the terms of the intended " Loud and Continuous Warning " Order. This will certainly come into force by August, but we trust not without the contemporary approval of those important saving clauses for which we endeavoured to show cause in our issue of the 8th instant. We refer to the granting of a margin above the arbitrary limits of 20 m.p.hr. for motorcabs and 12 m.p.hr. for motorbuses, and the recognition of the principle of a maximinii interval of time during which the warning note may be sounded as such. There must be reasonable opportunity for overtaking and other traffic exigencies, or the Order, without adding to the public safety in any way, will tend to increase the congestion of London streets : its very inelasticity will damn it as a practical regulation. Given 22 m.p.h. for motorcabs, 14 m.p.h. for motorbuses, and latitude that the audible warning may endure for, say, 15 seconds without penalty attaching. the letter of the law will be interpreted with that measure of broadness which must diminish the force of objections. We cannot, with any sense of decorum or responsibility, pretend that the average taxicab driver has proved his fitness to continue unrestrained; 20 m.p.hr., with a 10-per-cent. margin is not harsh upon him, so long as overtaking spurts are not rendered impossible, whilst the cab owners have much to gain from the forcible abandonment of the idea that the highest rate of progression is at all times the best. Two underlying misconceptions, however, will require to be avoided, in these matters of speed and unladen weight, both of which are again to the fore. Speed is only one factor of several contributory causes which account for street accidents, and unladen weight is not the sole measure of noise or vibration. Regard for the traffic upon the highway at the moment is the true criterion in the one case; total axle-weight is the direct measure, other conditions of use remaining constant, of the other. It will be a retrograde step if either speed or unladen weight be, respectively, regarded as the only consideration in the problem. They are merely limiting and limited factors, and neither can properly be separated from others of equal importance. We admit, none the less, that there is no valid reason, so long as the 20-mile maximum retains Parliamentary and Public sanction, why Sir Edward Henry should not take every conceivable step to enforce the law. That concerns speed. It cannot be shown—by the police or anybody—that unladen weight is as fair a test as axle-weight, for which latter the precedent of the Henry Motor Car Order is unassailable.

Tags

Organisations: Police of the Metropolis
People: Edward Henry
Locations: London

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