Doctors’ Right to Drive At Speed

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 348, 1 February 1937, Page 7

Doctors’ Right to Drive At Speed

JUDGE TELLS MAGISTRATE WHIW NOT TO SUSPEND LICENCES A doctor-motorist who exceeds the speed limit when going to an urgent case or a man rushing to make inquiries concerning an accident to his wife or child escape endorsement or suspension of his licence This suggestion was made by Mr Justice Goddard, giving advice at York Assizes (England), to magistrates whb dealt with motoring offences. Ho thought that the magistrates in dealing with' the 11 special circumstances” whereby licences were not endorsed or suspended should bear in mind that those special circumstances should be concerned with the facts of the case and not merely the character bt the defendant. They could hardly be taken into account where a chauffeur, lorry driver or i motorist with a first conviction, after driving for many years, was concerned. If that were to be so, hundreds of thousands of drivers would be claiming the special circumstances which, in his •iew, Parliament had no* intended. After referring to tne doctor, the Judge said other special circumstances might be applied in the case where a driver had been given a drug unknown to him in something ne had drunk and which would make him incapable ot driving properly.