A NOVEL IDEA

NZ Truth, Issue 1205, 3 January 1929, Page 13

A NOVEL IDEA

j Every Man His Own M A. LAUGH FOR DRIVERS

What N has been termed by a: section of the. Australian press, a "novel suggestion, ■' '■ has been put forward. It is that as a deterrent to the menace of drunken, drivers any passengers m the car should be charged with being "accessories after the fact."

IP this were done, the 'member asserts, the, sober passengers would take good care that am intoxicated driver did not take the wheel. If 'the sponsors of the idea can find no other word for this suggestion than* "novel," their vocabulary must' be ' lamentably weak. A better word would be funny, and even that would be kind. Boiled down, the suggestion is that every man should become his own "cop." : . Before anyone could accept a "lift". In safety, he would have to scrutinize the .driver's appearance, watch for any unusual gleam m his eye, an,d smell his breath. If the latter were very rich, the intending passenger might get intoxicated, by contact, and then there would

be the' devil to pay. -Two drunks instead of one! And. so ad infinitum, or according to the, amount of r alcoholic content per cubic centimetre of the ori r ginal 'drunk's 7 breath. Other, complications include the driver getting "boozed" after. the passengers had : entered; by the' driver being one; of those hard-boiled cases whom Pussyfoot himself couldn't tell was drunk without a microscopic inspection; and by an officious person swearing a life- long teetotaller was drunk because he' had been chewing cloves. No.doubt some of our readers can think up a few more possibilities of trouble for sober passengers.' Some ; real "novel" ones like the suggestion itself.