September 10.
We published yesterday morning a brief report of the proceedings in the case of a collision, due to careless driving between a carriage and a riesha containing a native, in which the Inter was thrown upon road on his head, and died shortly afterwards of concussion of the brain. Several cases of careless driving in crowded thoroughfares have been prosecuted recently by the police; and this in spite of the fact that traffic regulation in Shanghai presents peculiar difficulties such as are hardly to be equalled in any other town in world. The problem of exercising equitable control upon vehicles of such wide differing characteristics as carriages drawn by horses, waggons drawn by coolies, bicycles, rieshas and wheelbarrows, has been complicated further by the general introduction of motor cars, and multiplied tenfold by that rapid growth of the Settlement, commercially, industrially and socially, which has been xo notable a feature of—recent years. The condition of traffic is, Indeed, the first and most palpable sign to casual observation, of how much the requirements of the community are—_ outgrowing its limitations; and old residents, who have returned to Shanghai after a few years' absence, cannot be accused justly of exaggeration when they describe themselves as _perpetually afraid to cross the roads.
It is therefore highly satisfactory to learn that the new police regul-' ations, for the management of traffic and administration of the traffic staff, will come into force to-day.
will be remembered that, in the part of its recently published report which touched upon this subject, the Policy Inquiry Committee recommended that Inspector Kinipple, who was brought out from Home as an expert in traffic management, should be freed from the distracting duty of inspecting ricshas, which can be entrusted readily to one of his colleagues, in order to devote his entire time to the subject which demands more special knowledge. This suggestion has now been carried out; the traffic staff, which is now put wholly under Inspector Kinipplo's control has been suitably strengthened, also in pursuit of the Inquiry Committee's recommendations; and a memorandum has been sent out to the inspectors in charge of all police stations for the co-ordination of the methods to be adopted in each district. The whole scheme is an obvious improvement on the! system hitherto obtaining, under which the men employed on_ point duty took their © orders the (antral, Louza and Hongkew districts. Subsidiary improvements will doubtless suggest themselves as the new methods come into work. It is probable, for instance, that the erection, at regular intervals along the principal streets, of refuges with ts at each end, such as may be found in all large European cities, would serve invaluable purpose; not only as being in themselves a hoon to pedestrians, but as a means of keeping the traffic in two independent streams. Temptation to disregard the rule of the road is more easily overcome when the object to be avoided is a granite post instead of a point policeman. In course of time some relief should further be afforded to our congested thoroughfares by the policy which the Municipal Council steadily follows ap of acquiring land, wherever occasional reconstructions permit, in order to push hack frontages for the widening of narrow streets.
Such a process, however, must necessarily be slow; and' it is doubtful whether the extra accommodation thus gained may not have been already counted, if the growth of Shan, maintains its present rate of increase, and especially' in view of the approaching installation of the tram service. It must indeed be remembered that, whatever systems and rules be inaugurated by the authorities, whom there is certainly no ground for charging' with procrastination in this matter, the ultimate execution of them lies in the hands of every member of the community, individually and collectively. In the correspondence which has lately appeared in these columns on the subject of motor car speed, the sounding of horns and use of sirens, it seems to be assumed by the owners of high speed vehicles that their superior pace entitles them to call upon slower conveyances to give way before them. We are very far from wishing to accentuate those little dissensions which a comparatively new invention, such as the motor car, must at first occasion between travellers of different degree. The allusion to this controversy is merely intended as illustration of a principle which is equally applicable to all vehicles whether the motive power be petrol, Waler or pony. What has been found necessary in Piccadilly is becoming equally necessary in the Nanking Road; that all carriages should travel at an equal pace, and that equal attention should be given by all, in. the interests of all, to the rule of the road. If hardsltip there be in ch applies to the itis atleest of no great duration in Shanghai seeing that the freedom of open country is so quickly reached. But within the Settlement itself, the ready ce-operation of the whole community can alone achieve a final solution of the traffic problem.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.