Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1938. INTOXICATED MOTORISTS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 16, 29 October 1938, Page 6

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1938. INTOXICATED MOTORISTS.

The Minister of Transport will have the support of the whole country in his efforts to cope with the menace of intoxicated motorists. The present law providing for either a fine or imprisonment has not been effective, as is shown by the fact that convictions are increasing and not diminishing as it was hoped would be the case when offenders were first faced with the possibility of having to serve sentences. The problem has been the subject of 'frequent comment by judges and magistrates, who have issued the warning that the continuance of cases is steadily forcing a position when legislation will have to be passed imposing imprisonment as the only penalty. One magistrate has gone so far as to characterise an intoxicated driver as an obviously potential murderer and other judicial pronouncements have been as severe,'if couched in different words. The increasing use of motor vehicles has introduced on the highways conditions that call for the exercise of the full faculties of drivers and a due sense of responsibility, and anyone who so acts that he is incapable of fulfilling those conditions and yet takes the risk is guilty of more than an offence against the ordinances of the realm. The modern facilities for fast travelling render intoxicated motorists a more serious menace than they were a few years ago. With bituminised roads and cars of quick acceleration and high speed they drive under conditions that were impossible on oldtime roads and with old-type cars, the combination of which would have quickly landed them in difficulties rendering them harmless, or comparatively harmless, to others. The great body of motorists are as keenly interested as any other section of the community in ensuring the maximum safety of the highways and they take a serious view of the position created by the intoxicated driver. The infliction of fines has not proved sufficient deterrent and the community is being forced to the conclusion that imprisonment is the only effective remedy. The difficulty, as the Minister has pointed out, is that this punishment would penalise the families of offenders, but much as one sympathises with innocent sufferers it has to be realised that the same argument applies in a great number of other cases. To establish as law the principle that punishment depends upon the suffering entailed on others would be to open up wide possibilities opposed to the basis of British justice. The only ground on which, in respect to the effect on .dependants, distinction can logically be made between the motorist who imperils life and limb through indulgence in liquor and the man who infringes other sections of the social code is that the former does not set out with deliberate intention whereas the latter has criminal intent. For this reason there is ground for Mr Semple’s desire that the law should be amended so that offenders may serve terms of imprisonment by incarceration during week-ends. The system, it is stated, has been adopted with success in some of the American States. At any rate, the proposal is worthy of the fullest investigation so that the country may know exactly how it works out and be in a position to judge its applicability to the Dominion.