OVERLOADED CAR

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 153, 24 March 1939, Page 3

OVERLOADED CAR

Too Many Passengers Carried

Whether a car carrying too many passengers was loaded so as to be liable to cause injury was argued before Air. AV. ,F. Stilwell, S.AL, in the Alagistrittes’. Court, AVellington, yesterday. A defendant charged with having bis car so loaded, Allen Brown, was convicted and ordered to pay costs. He was stated by Traffic Inspector Saunders to have carried eight persons in a car designed to carry four. . Air. P. 11. Putnam, for defendant, said the regulation referred only to a vehicle carrying goods. Injury to any person or animal clearly meant injury to something on the road.. Defendant said in evidence that there were six persons in the car. He was quite free to manipulate the controls. The number of persons in the car was given by a passenger in evidence as six. Air. A. R. Cooper, who prosecuted for the AVellington city traffic department, said that unless a driver could see clearly on both sides and was perfectly free to operate the brakes and steering wheel, there must be the possibility of injury. If the load was in such a position or so great that the driver did not have the control he should have had, the vehicle must be held to be so loaded as to be liable to cause injury. The magistrate said he was rather surprised to find that the section could operate in such a case, but he must hold that the carrying of too many passengers came within the offence. He was satisfied it was a dangerous practice.