PARLIAMENTARIANS TO TEST DRIVING

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30979, 8 February 1966, Page 12

PARLIAMENTARIANS TO TEST DRIVING

WELLINGTON, Feb. 7. The Select Committee on Road Safety plans to discover just how chemical tests for drinking drivers work. In this controlled experiment, members would become intoxicated motorists—for test purposes. At a three-day meeting last month the committee began hearing evidence on blood tests.

(New Zealand Press Association)

Late this month, at its next series of meetings, the Parliamentarians will deliberate—and if possible find out for themselves the merits and disadvantages of using blood tests to determine if drivers are drunk. The 10-member committee was appointed last year to look into all aspects of road safety. At its initial meeting in November the Parliamentarians asked individuals and organisations to present written submissions on road safety. Later the Minister of Transport (Mr McAlpine) reported that submissions received covered a wide range of topics, including increased safety at railway level crossings, compulsory eyesight testing for middle-aged drivers and incentives for safe driving. In January submissions were made on blood tests by the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, the New Zealand Road Safety Council and the Police. The committee, with Mr D. J. Carter (Raglan) as chairman, comprises ♦four National members, the Minister of Transport and Messrs W. H. Brown (Palmerston North), J. B. Gordon (Clutha), R. D. Muldoon (Tamaki) and H. E. L. Pickering (Rangiora), and ■ four Labour members, Messrs A. J. Faulkner (Roskill), J. Mathison (Avon), H. L. J. May (Porirua) and H. Watt (Onehunga).