Unreasonable Motor License Law

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 114, 4 August 1927, Page 11

Unreasonable Motor License Law

LOCAL BODIES’ GRAB SERVICE-CAR MEN INDIGNANT ’ It’s impossible. Nobody could do it. It’s quite unreasonable." Service car proprietors have been astounded by the recent legal decision in Wellington that they are liable to pay licence fees to every local body through whose territory their cars pass. The impracticability of doing so has been trenchantly commented on by proprietors in Auckland. That it is a bad flaw in legislation distinguished by flaws, and that if not amended it will soon be challenged in the courts was the opinion expressed to-day. The Auckland proprietors, with one ! exception it is understood, are not making any move to pay up. ANOMALY ON EAST COAST The position has become acute on the East Coast. “I’ll let them summons me first. I can’t pay it,” stated one proprietor, who operates between Opotiki and Gisborne. At present he pays on one car taxes amounting to £4O 11s 2d and it now means that additional taxes can be demanded by Gisborne Borough Council, Cook, Waikohu and Opotiki Counties and the Opotiki Borough, a total additional tax of, approximately, £57, making the total tax £97 a car. Cars operating between Opotiki, Tauranga and Rotorua have to pay taxes in Opotiki Borough, Opotiki County, Whakatane Borough, Whakatane County, Te Puke Town Board, Tauranga Borough, Tauranga County, Rotorua Borough and Rotorua County. COMPETITION WITH RAILWAYS The opinion was expressed that the fear that motor transport was taking trade from the railways was at the back of the law. On the service runs down the coasts there is practically no communication other than by motor, and if such a decision were generally enforced, it would be impossible for cars to continue without prohibitive fares and the country would fall back from the consequent isolation. Gisborne, for instance, has no access other than by motor. A prominent service manager likened the work of service cars to the shepherds’ dogs. Bogs had been man’s best friends in developing the back country just as the motor services were the greatest aid in tapping vast areas of the North Island. He suggested that the fees should be pooled for the local bodies and licences made for general travel.