Traffic Reform.
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It appears to us that the country must soon awaken to the fact that traffic reform is only second in importance to tariff reform. The Lord Chief Justice., with whom sat J J. Sigh= and Walton, last week, reluctantly confirmed the decision of the Bradford Stipendiary, that an overtaking motorcar is by law required to travel upon the off side of a tramcar which is proceeding in the same direction. It was held, too, that a tramcar is still " proceeding " in a particular direction when it is temporarily stopped. The rigidline vehicle is legally a carriage, and any motorcar therefore has both to be incommoded by and to give way to its inflexibility. Why not apply, we ask, the principle of Rex versus Chittenden, that the degree of permissible obstruction should not exceed that due to a horsed vehicle when engaged upon similar work? The appeal arose on a case stated by the magistrate named above. An information had been laid under Article IV (3) of the Motor Cars (Use and Construction) Order, 1904, which reads :—" He (the driver) shall when meetingany carriage, horse, or cattle, keep the motorcar on the left or near side of the road, and when passing any carriag-e, horse, or rattle, proceeding in the same direction, keep the motorcar on the right or off side of the same." The appellant had, in overtaking a tramcar which was temporarily stopped at a fixed stopping-place, at a point where the lines were double, two tramcars being alongside, passed on the left (or near) side of the road, i.e., between the kerb and the tramcar which was proceeding in the same direction as he himself was driving. There was ample space to have passed on either side of both tramcars, but not to have passed between them. The Bradford Stipendiary held that a tramcar was a carriage within the meaning of the Order, and expressed the view that the driver of the motorcar should have waited until the tramcars had ceased to discharge and take up passengers. There was, however, apparently no suggestion that anybody was endangered.
Owners and drivers of commercial motors are, accordingly, obliged to face the fact that they must not, so long as the present rule holds good, let their vehicles overtake on the inside : they must wait, or go outside— that is, across
the road. This forebodes chaos, and a cartoon (page 410) aptly illustrates what, though clearly dangerous, may be legal. It depicts two omnibuses in the act of overtaking tramcars as by law prescribed. We are prompted to ask whether, since a tramcar is here to be regarded as a carriage, all drivers of those vehicles are liable to conviction, under the Highways Act of 1835, for not drawing to the left when the road is "called " from them. If, by reason of their inability to move laterally, the vehicles are to be exempted from the definition thereunder, it at least seems equitable that the converse should hold good, and that no penalties should be levied where a driver commits a technical breach in consequence of the rigidity of track of the " carriage " in front of him. The anomalous state of the law is heightened by the wishes of many tramway managers, and by the sympathetic action of some chief constables. At Liverpool, for example, the head of the police circulated a notice to the effect that any overtaking of tramcars was to be on the near side, and a personal friend of the writer's was subsequently summoned, for driving his motorcar on the off side of a tramcar, and suffered endorsement of his license. This reflection on his carefulness will, we suppose, now have to be expunged?
Reverting to the decision in the Bradford case, the Lord Chief Justice, in delivering judgment, admitted that the case was a difficult one. He thought it had been overlooked that the ordinary rule had in fact been modified by the bringing into existence of tramrails and vehicles which ran upon them. He added that it would obviously be impossible, in many cases,to compel motorcars to pass on the off side, in accordance with the regulation as it stood, and quoted the instance of the Thames Embankment. He remarked upon the fact that the proceedings before him had not been based on driving to the common danger, or driving negligently, but simply on passing on the wrong side. It was impossible to say that a tramcar was not a carriage, as that was fully established, and, in view of the well-known existence of tramways when the Order was framed, it must be held that the framers of the regulations had tramcars in mind. Then comes the important part of the judgment :—He would gladly have held that tramcars were not carriages for this purpose, had he been able to do so, and, in his judgment, the sooner the regulation in question was modified, the better it would be. It was true that magistrates, under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, might refuse to convict where they had merely a technical offence; but the words of the rule as it stood clearly imposed an obligation to pass on the off side. The appeal was accordingly dismissed.
All will agree that the need for traffic reform is obvious, and here we are concerned with a case which does not affect the Metropolis alone. London's grievances are admittedly serious, but every town and highway in the country, whereever tramlines exist, must continue to witness scenes of undue obstruction until the right to pass on the near side is legalised—subject, of course, to the reasonable safeguards which already are provided by Section t of the Motor Car Act of 1903. At a stage of traffic development when fast traffic is by common consent being allotted the crown of the road in an increasing degree, as witness the manner in which horse-buses and horse-cabs keep to the side in order that the faster motorbuses and motorcabs may get through, it is indeed an incongruity of the law which invites abnormal delays, or the risk of a throwing into confusion of opposing streams of vehicles.