Service Cars Are Not Omnibuses

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 787, 7 October 1929, Page 1

Service Cars Are Not Omnibuses

UNREASONABLE BY-LAW

LEGAL POSITION DEFINED From Our Own Correspondent HAMILTON, Today. In a reserved judgment given at Hamilton today, Mr. Justice Ostler quashed portions of a Hamilton borough by-law. The by-law complained of was made in 1927, before the Omnibus Traffic Act came into force. The only part, objected to was the definition of motor-omnibus, which was as follow: —“A motor-omnibus means a motor for the carriage of passengers for hire iu which passengers are charged to pay a separate or distinct fare for a respective seat therein.” His Honour said if the owner of a motor-cycle with a sidecar attached made a business of taking two passengers for hire at separate fares, one on the pillion and one in the sidecar, his vehicle would come within the definition of a motor-omnibus. He addend that the business conducted by service-car proprietors was, in the present state of the law, lawful, and served the public convenience. The by-law, which was made before this class of business developed, provided stringent conditions as to construction of a motor-omnibus before it could ply for hire in the borough. It would be utterly unreasonable to apply these provisions to the class of motors generally used as service-cars. The Borough Council had recognised | the difficulty, because it had not en- • forced its own by-law against owners ; of most service-cars running on routes i with terminal points in the borough. | It had licensed 30 of these vehicles as • motor-cars, although its executive j officers must have known they were j used purely as service-cars, and were | not taxi-cabs plying for hire. j The judge .said the borough officials j knew a large number of breaches of 1 by-laws were committed daily by | drivers of service-cars, inasmuch as ! daily they left and returned to the borough unlicensed as motor-omni-buses, without complying with the requirements. There were thousands of such breaches every year, for which no one was prosecuted. Wry? The only | reasonable answer to that was that the I officials must recognise that it would be unreasonable to prosecute, because i it was unreasonable to enforce the stringent provisions as to construction in the case of service-cars. There was no escape from the conclusion that the by-law itself was unreasonable. The borough inspector admitted in one or two private prosecutions by the Hamilton Borough that they had been brought with the object of preventing competition with existing services. Although boroughs had wide powers, his Honour said he had yet to learn that they had power to prevent private competiaion in business. He granted on order quashing portions of the by-law set out in the motions, with costs against the council.