Paris Follows Germany' s Lead.
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No More Steel-tired Vehicles in the City.
Commercial-vehicle owners in Paris have up to the present been singularly free from police arid municipal restrictions, there being no speed limit whatever, and practically no limitations as to weight. The. new Prefect of Police, after a bold and not altogether unsuccessful attempt to reform traffic conditions, has just decided that. heavy motor vehicles with steel tires shall not be allowed in the city after 15th October of the present year, and that the speed of all commercial-motor vehicles .shall be limited to seven-anda-hall miles an hour.
This measure hasP been taken owing to the large number of complaints made against the vibration set up by very heavy vehicles running without rubber tires. The street departments, too, have been well aware that certain highways constantly used by heavy steel-shod vehicles have been deteriorated and in some cases shaken to their foundations. The enforcing of this rule with only three months notice will be a considerable hardship on many firms. There is at the present time a very large number of motor vehicles in Paris without rubber tires. The petrol trucks are not very great sinners, for these are practically all Army-subsidised types, which must, in order to secure the subsidy, conform very closely to certain maximum weight limits. It would not be an impossible task, either, to convert all these from steelshod to rubber-shod. In addition, there are numbers. of steamers with practically no weight limit, and all of them fitted with steel tires. All the reels of paper for the Paris dailies are brought from the mills 10 miles out to the central printing offices on this type of vehicle. One of the biggest sugar refiners uses a fleet of these steamers, building contractors are using them for hauling building material and huge blocks of stone, and in the various extensions of the underground railway these steamers are being used for hauling earth.
It would not be surprising if there is opposition to this regulation, in view of the French temperament, and the hardship which the strict application of the law would entail. No disinterested observer can deny that there has been too much latitude with regard to weights and speeds of commercial vehicles in the city of Paris—a comparison with London is sufficient to prove this—but interested parties are not likely to approve the method of reforming by a single stroke of the pen. The German example in regard to a long period of grace for existing owners should unquestionably be copied.