‘MENACE ON THE ROAD’

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 July 1938, Page 8

‘MENACE ON THE ROAD’

TWELVE MONTHS’ DETENTION FOR MOTORIST FAILURE TO STOP AFTER ACCIDENT RECKLESSNESS CONDEMNED BY JUDGE (By Telegraph—Press Association). CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Stressing the Bench’s duty to protect the public from reckless motorists, Mr Justice Northcroft, in the Supreme Court today, sentenced Vivian Harvey Were, who admitted failing to stop a car he was driving after an accident, to twelve months’ reformative detention, ordered his driving licence to be cancelled, and declared him unfit to hold a licence for five years. On behalf of Were, counsel submitted that Were’s was a minor instance of the offence, the car he was driving having merely grazed another. There was no suggestion of anyone being injured. Were had been before the Magistrate’s Court on several occasions for motoring offences counsel admitted, and the Probation Officer’s report was against him. "This was not a trivial-offence,” said his Honour to Were. "You were driving in a violently reckless, irresponsible and indecent manner, and did not run away, as some drivers have done, impulsively, but, possibly having your previous convictions in mind, continued on, contrary to the pleading of your own companions, who begged you to stop. It is not your fault you did not leave someone seriously injured to lie in agony on the road.”

Were had been before the Court, said his Honour, twice for driving offences involving negligence, twice for converting cars, and twice for driving without a licence. “You are a menace to other people on the road,” continued his Honour. “Your’s is the sort of case the Legislature had in view when this Act was passed. I feel cast upon me the grave task of protecting the public from motorists who drive as recklessly and negligently as you have done.”