"HIT AND RUN."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 134, 8 June 1936, Page 9

"HIT AND RUN."

COWARDLY DRIVERS.

J "POTENTIAL MURDERERS." MR. SEMPEE ON THE PROBLEM. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Hie "hit and run" motorist came under the scathing lash of the tongue oi the Minister of Transport, Mr. Seniple, when explaining in the House of Representatives on Saturday the provisions contained in the Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill. "A clause is included," he said, "that increases the maximum penalty to which a motorist is liable when he is involved in an accident and fails to stop. This is a most serious problem in New Zealand and throughout the world."

Under existing law the maximum penalty was three months' imprisonment and a line of £20, he said. That was insufficient for a "hit and run'' motorist, and the bill provided for a maximum penalty of five years, or a fine not exceeding £500.

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Forbes: Aery severe.

Mr. Semple said a severe penalty was needed. A man who was intoxicated while in charge of a motor car and knocked somebody down and left him to die on the road was a potential murderer, and should be punished. Such a mishap might, on the other hand, be due to accident, but it was the duty of every citizen to stop his car and take the injured person to the nearest hospital. (Hear, hear from both sides of the House.)

Men and women had been left on the road to die. but their lives might have been saved had they been taken at once to a hospital. Men who were guilty of such a cowardly crime presented a problem here and elsewhere, and the bill was designed to make the penalty fit the offence. Accidents were liable to increase in proportion to the increased number of cars on the road.