Couldn’t car-less
Petrol rationing reached its peak in the late 1970s,
In the year that the VW Golf and Toyota Corolla fought to be named the best-selling car in the world, New Zealand motorists were asked to choose which day of the week they’d go without wheels, in a bid to ease pressure on a tight fuel supply. Carless days were introduced on July 30, 1979, under the Robert Muldoon-led National party, in the midst of the second world oil shortage that decade. The law went alongside a lower speed limit of 80kmh, and a ban on selling petrol in the weekend.
Before carless days were put in place, The Evening Post predicted Wellington’s public transport system simply would not cope if hundreds or even thousands of commuters were to suddenly leave their cars at home, and pile on to buses and trains to get to work.
‘‘Sardine like’’ conditions were predicted on trains that transport planners said were already reaching capacity. The reality was described as ‘‘hazy’’ when the first carless day dawned on the capital.
Cars with the purple sticker signalling they were to stay off the road on that Monday were expected to have made up to 20 per cent of all cars, but it was difficult to see if taking them off the road had made any difference to transport patterns.
However, hundreds of people trying to get around the new rules led to staff at the Ministry of Transport answering the phone as ‘‘Ministry of Carless Days’’, The Evening Post reported.
The first person caught for using his car on a carless day was Gordon Marks, of Christchurch, in October 1979. He had been at a party and decided to take a nap before heading home. He woke at 3.45am and hopped in his car, forgetting that as of 2am he was on his carless day. He was pulled over. In sentencing him, the judge agreed it was an oversight by Marks but said as it was the first case to come before the courts, the legislation had to be seen to have ‘‘teeth’’. Marks was fined $50 of a potential $400 fine.
Auckland bore the brunt of the change, with buses being overloaded and many first-time bus riders were unsure how long their journey would take.
Richard Griffin, a former political journalist, got back from overseas just in time to see carless days in action. At the time, carless days seemed more of a joke than an inconvenience, he said.
‘‘A lot of people used their cars on carless days anyway. It was a bit like drunk driving – if you could get away with it you did. There was no stigma attached to it, and no drama if you got caught, but it was expensive.’’
Households that had two cars were barely affected by the law.
The regulations were symptomatic of the political nuances that were around, Griffin said. ‘‘Like every generation it seemed like a chaotic generation; carless days were part of the chaos. We were worried about Russian missiles, about values disintegrating . . . in a sense carless days were part of what appeared to be the onset of a maelstrom of madness.’’
According to reports in The Evening Post at the time, 15 per cent of motorists were exempt from the carless-day rule.
They included those with taxis, diplomatic cars, any car not using petrol, vehicles used on farms, armed forces vehicles, and traffic department cars.
National’s then-minister of energy Sir Bill Birch has a more practical explanation for the law.
The government had to act to ensure the limited amount of petrol was spread around fairly, he said. ‘‘If it had been a long-term issue probably rationing would have been inevitable. We did not think it was going to be long-term, so carless days was an alternative option. It was less regulated than rationing, and could be introduced quicker, and removed quicker.’’
He took some flak, but said most people understood the situation, despite it being irritating to work around the days a vehicle could not be used.
There were huge debates in the House over the rules, but Birch believed the Opposition struggled to oppose carless days as they could not suggest any alternatives.
On May 13, 1980, less than a year after it was first put in place, the carless-day rule was ‘‘suspended’’, and petrol prices went up four cents a litre. According to Te Ara Encyclopaedia, the scheme had done little to reduce the amount of petrol being used. Speaking this year, Birch said the law was meant only as a short-term measure, so when the oil supply began to flow more freely, it was not needed.
News reports from 1980 show the government was still grappling with the oil shortage, making sure it had legislation in place to enforce petrol rationing if necessary, and only suspended carless days, warning Kiwis that the scheme might be ‘‘reactivated’’ if needed. While rations were discussed later in the 1980s as the fuel supply remained sketchy, they were never implemented, and carless days became a thing of the past.
The first person caught for using their car on a ‘‘carless’’ day . . . had been at a party and decided to take a nap before heading home.