* * * The horse-drawn lorry, to which I have
referred more than once in this column, is becoming a more intolerable obstruction than ever in the centre of London, and for all I know, other great cities. What has made matters worse is the traffic lights. It is bad enough to find in streets where for one reason or another there is only room for one line of traffic each way dozens of vehicles tailing away behind a horse-van moving at a steady four miles an hour. But the lights add a new complication. If they are to be of any use, the cars stopped by the red light must get away sharply and cleanly on the green. But watch a file of cars waiting, with a horse-lorry about the third place from the front. In three cases out of five it will just get across, and all the cars behind it be held up a second time. The only way is to ban horse-traffic altogether in central London. The veto may create some hardship, though the railways, who are the chief offenders, could quite well mechanize all their transportbut it will have to come sooner or later, and meanwhile the indefensible
Previous page
