IS HEARSE HEAVY TRAFFIC VEHICLE?

Evening Star, Issue 21752, 21 June 1934, Page 5

IS HEARSE HEAVY TRAFFIC VEHICLE?

INTERESTING TAX POINT [Pun United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, June 20. The question whether in the meaning of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1924, a dead body can be considered to be a person was argued in the Police Court to-day before Mr W. R. M‘Kean, S.M. The point was raised when a prosecution was laid by the Auckland City Council against Michael McCarthy, an undertaker, of Avondale, who was charged with .using an unlicensed heavy trafficvehicle. It was admitted that _ the vehicle in question, a hearse, weighed over the two tons, the weight specified to bring a vehicle in the heavy traffic category. Counsel for the defence, Mr Clarke, claimed that the vehicle -was exempt from special license in that it was a private motor car. A motor car was defined in the Act as a vehicle designed solely, or principally, for the carriage of persons, not exceeding nine. Actually the hearse counsel maintained, was designed for the. carriage of three persons, two of- whom, the driver and the undertaker, were living, and a third was dead. It was a-private car in that it did not ply for hire. For the council, Mr Bland maintained that a hearse had no features which would remove it from the cate- • gory of an ordinary heavy traffic vehicle. A coffin and a corpse could not be considered as a passenger. A driver was necessary as on all vehicles, and the undertaker was carried merely for the sake of convenience. Mr M'Kean said that, while in taxing legislation the wording, had to be very strictly construed, he nevertheless felt that the word “ persons” whs undoubtedly intended to mean living persons, and that a hearse was really a vehicle primarily intended for the carriage of a dead body. However, he would reserve his deciion.