CASES' FOR MAGISTRATES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 April 1938, Page 9

CASES' FOR MAGISTRATES

INTOXICATED DRIVING CHARGES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION'S VIEWS. By Telegraph—Press Association. DUNEDIN. April 12. The opinion that persons charged with being intoxicated while in charge of motor vehicles should be dealt with only by magistrates and not by justices of the peace was expressed by Mr A. E. Ansell at a meeting of the Automobile Association (Otago) tonight. Mr Ansell made particular reference to a recent case at Blenheim where justices of the peace refrained from imposing a term of imprisonment on a driver for a fourth offence because he was about to take part in local body elections, and the following motion, which he moved, was carried unanimously: That the South Island Motor Union should be requested to co-operate with the North Island Motor Union in joint representations to the Government drawing its attention to the necessity for such legislation or regulations as will ensure that persons charge with being intoxicated while in charge of motor vehicles shall be dealt with by stipendiary magistrates. "Quite recently, after a weekend, it made one feel despondent to open a newspaper,” Mr Ansell said, when introducing the subject. “After all our efforts and the Government’s efforts to stamp out or lessen the huge total of offences under this heading there were six cases for the weekend from Christchurch alone. Most notable was a message from Blenheim, where a man who came before justices of the peace on a fourth offence of being intoxicated while in charge of a motor - vehicle was not imprisoned because, in the opinion of the justices, a term of imprisonment would cause him to suffer in view of approaching local body elections. I think it is scandalous that considerations of that kind should be allowed to enter into a judicial decision."

The president of the association, Mr P. W. Breen, said it was regrettable that accidents caused by drunken drivers were still on the increase, and it seemed that magistrates would have to deal with them more drastically. It was not the danger to a drunken driver himself that mattered so much as the menace to others users of the road.