MOTORISTS AND PUBLIC.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 130, 2 June 1923, Page 6

MOTORISTS AND PUBLIC.

We note with apprehension tlie statement of the Minister of Internal Affairs that he sees no prospect of proceeding with the Motor Vehicles Bill unless the two Motor Unions, North and South, can agree on the proposed tax on cars. If the Government is going to wait until all parties to the proposals in the bill, motorists nnd local bodies of various grades, agree on everything, it may have to wait for ever. The proposals of the bill are now two years old, and only the highways portion of it has been passed into law. That part, remarks the "Evening Post," is a shadow of its former self, and while it has reached the Statute Book it seems to have found a resting place there. But it is not only that the Government's attitude of waiting for parties to agree may endanger the roadmaking portion of the policy embodied in the original bill, but that it threatens the achievement of something else that is long overdue, tbe improvement of the law relating to motorists. The 'bill provided for the issue of licenses to motorists, and the endorsement or cancellation of these for offences. The introduction of such a system would do more than anything else to check reckless driving, and it would be welcomed by the unselfish and considerate motorist as well as by the public, whose limbs and lives are in _rreater peril with every month that passes. It is a good sign, by the way, that the .Southern Motor L'nion has asked for heavier penalties for breaches of by-laws. Heavier penalties in the ordinary sense, however, are not enough. What is wanted is power to say to the "road-hog" that he shall not drive a car for a year or two years or ten years, as the case may be. The Government will shirk a plain duty if it shelves this question merely because it cannot get agreement on proposals of another nature. It ought to show some courage in these matters.