DEMONSTRATION CARS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 10

DEMONSTRATION CARS.

RIGHTS OF MOTOR DEALERS.

FAMILY DRIVEN ON SUNDAY

CONVICTION AT HAMILTON.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, Wednesday. The rights of motor dealers in relation to the use of demonstration cars on Sundays were argued in the Hamilton Magistrate's Court to-day, when Lawrence Harold Johnson, motor dealer, New Plymouth (Mr. J. F. Strang), was charged with driving an unregistered and unlicensed motor car on Sunday, February 1.

The facts were admitted. They were that defendant drove through Hamilton from New Plymouth to Auckland in a demonstration car. He was going to Auckland on business, but accompanying him were his family and his sister. Mr. Strang contended that as defendant had

paid the appropriate fees and was going to Auckland on business there had been no breach of the law merely because he had his family with him. The original Act of 1924, said counsel, had extended the privileges of motor dealers, and so long as the appropriate license fees were paid dealers were entitled to use demonstration cars on any road at any time for the purpose of business. The question at issue was the construction to be placed on the word "only" governing the phrase "for the purposes of the business." The magistrate, Mr. Wyvern Wilson, traversed the history of the legislation relating to motor vehicles, and said his view was that the privilege accorded motor dealers had to be strictly construed. He thought the fact that the license fee for dealers was the same as for private owners made no difference, and ho held that the distinction must be preserved between the use of vehicles for trading purposes and for private uses. Defendant's vehicle, said the magistrate, could bo legitimately used for trading purposes, but as in this particular case defendant transported his family it had not been used only for trading purposes. Defendant was convicted and ordered to pay 10/ costs.