DANGEROUS DRIVING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 May 1939, Page 7

DANGEROUS DRIVING

GLADSTONE FARMER FINED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. If a motorist was at all affected by liquor he had no business to drive, said Mr A. M; Goulding, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Lower Hutt, yesterday, when he fined Gordon Strang Cooper, sheep-farmer, Gladstone (Mr H. R. Biss), £4, with costs 10s, for dangerous driving. He also ordered that, the conviction be endorsed on defendant’s present licence and on the next licence issued to him. Inspector A. C. Crawford said that at 2 a.m. on Easter Sunday he followed defendant for a mile on the Hutt Road. He went on to the incorrect side three times. He forced one car partly off the bitumen and while on the wrong sida. also forcing it right off the bitumen and on to the macadam. His speed was 25 to 30 miles an hour. When stopped, defendant smelt of liquor, and admitted having had some drink. He was also unsteady on his feet. At the Petone police station a doctor examined him, but would not certify him intoxicated. He passed three tests, one of which was to stand on one leg, bend down and pick up a pin. The doctor asked defendant if he was going to drive. He said he had another driver, and the doctor replied that this was just as well, as he was of the opinion that defendant had had too much drink.

The magistrate said he doubted if a large number of perfectly sober people would be able to pass the pin test satisfactorily. If motorists were put through more difficult tests than this, then the tests would be farcical. Mr Biss said Cooper had driven two footballers, Nunn and Walker, to Wellington for a match on the Saturday. He had one drink in Carterton in the morning, three before tea and one at a dance at night. The drinks were all small beers or shandies. Defendant and Richard Neil Nunn, carrying contractor, gave evidence along these lines. The magistrate said that defendant’s driving was undoubtedly affected by liquor, though there was not the evidence to justify a major prosecution for being intoxicated in charge. He was justified in taking a serious view of . the base in defendant’s own interests and as a warning to him.