INTOXICATED DRIVER

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 454, 11 June 1937, Page 6

INTOXICATED DRIVER

AS RARE AS THE MOA Transport Minister’s Goal Press Association —Copyright. • Christchurch, June 11. “In 12 months he will be as rare as the moa,” said the Minister of Transport, Hon. R. Semple, referring to the intoxicated driver in an address to a meeting of local bodies. “He has got to go, not for six months when he is caught, but for the term of his natural life. He can get drunk if he wants to so long as he goes to bed or crawls up a gaspipe, but he is not going to kill people on the road.” The Minister said that he was optimistic enough Ito believe that ■ 90 per cent of the accidents on New Zealand roads could be prevented by more effective control. He said that some persons were acquiring driving licenses without Kests or without proper tests. "Don’t tel! me that is not true,” he said when there were sounds of dissent. “I know ilt is true. I don’t talk without having the facts. ‘‘My own view is that the fellow intoxicated in charge of a ear it a bigger menace than the man with a revolver or a razor,” Mr Semple stoid. “In the last seven years that type of man has killed 275 innocent New Zealand people. Because some individual in the shape of a man poisoned himself with booze and murdered them we ere not going to allow it (to go on.”