ROAD ACCIDENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 184, 5 August 1936, Page 22

ROAD ACCIDENTS.

HIT-AND-RUN CASES.

GROWING EVIL IN SYDNEY

CAIiL FOR STRONG ACTION. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, July 30. Public feeling in this State, and especially in Sydney and its suburbs, lias been deeply stirred by the increasing prevalence of the so-called "hit-and-run" type of accident. Within a little over a week nine eases have been recorded in which a motorist, having knocked down a pedestrian, has made no attempt to ascertain what lias happened or to help his. victim, but has simply driven away.

11l many cases, it seems, these tragedies have been the work of joyriders, some of them probably half drunk, and nearly always driving stolen fills. The police authorities are anxious to increase- the strength of their fast car squadron, which has already done good service in picking up offenders,; and in one particularly heinous case the Commissioner has offered a reward of £100 for the detection of the criminal. In their ca\npaign against the hit-and-run driver, the police are receiving a full measure of public assistance and sympathy. The motorists' organisations in particular, feeling that abominable practices of the hit-and-run type reflect grievously upon drivers of all classes, are advocating strong punitive measures against this growing evil.

Mr. Watson, once Prime Minister of Australia and now president of the N.R.M.A., told the "Sunday Sun" last week that no denunciation can be too strong for such callous criminals; and Air. Bradley, K.C., who is president of the R.A.C.A., says that no decent citizen can defend, excuse or shelter such heartless offenders against the public security. Severe Treatment Urged.

The "Daily Telegraph," in an editorial, denounces the hit-and-run motorist as "a combination of coward and scoundrel," and declares that he has "stopped to a murderer's level." Jt urges that such offenders when caught should be treated with the most drastic severity. The general opinion throughout Sydney and New South Wales seems to be that the hit-and-run motorist should rightly bo regarded and dealt with as "Public Knemv No. 1."

And yet, amid this chorus of denunciation a few discordant voices have been raised. Of course nobody could defend the hit-and-run motorist, but the more respectable section of the very large motor driving community lias begun to protest against the tendency displayed in many quarters here to "lump them all together," and in regard to road accidents, to think and speak of ail motorists as either actual or potential criminals. Moreover, strong protests liavo been raised of late against the severely restrictive attitude which the police are said to have adopted toward all motorists alike. Many drivers gav that there is nothing to be gained by defending oneself against the police, for the lattor's word is always accepted by the magistrate against that of the civilian, who feels that his best course is to save time and trouble by paying his tine at once.

Police Attitude Criticised. The "Daily Telegraph" has just published a series of articles under the caption "Making Motorists Criminals," in which the writer maintains that the police, even when they are perfectly honest in their opinions, are obsessed* by the idea that the motorist must always bo in the wrong, simply because he or she is driving a car, and they make their charges accordingly. According to this critic the policeman, with the best of intentions, always argues on these lines:—Road accidents must be put down; road accidents have increased since the motor car came in. fore the motor car and the motorists are causes of road accidents, and the motorist must be put down, and to this the policeman might retort that motor vehicles are always the active cause, innocent or otherwise, of motor accidents, and that infringements of the law must, therefore, be carefully noted; whereas no one has ever heard of a pedestrian running over a motor car and killing its driver.

But, of course, there is a serious side to the case presented by the motorists, and many people admit it. When large numbers of police in fast cars are constantly on the look-out for offenders the tendency of the officers will naturally be to justify their vigilance by making sure of convictions, so far as that can be done honestly; and the magistrates who hear the charges and have been appropriately shocked bv such outrages as the hit-and-run crimes will naturally tend to side with the police. Fol* this reason, curiously enough, strong objections have been raised to any further strengthening of the police flying squads, partly 011 the ground that the police in striving to arrest offenders frequently break the speed laws themselves and produce conditions dangerous to traffic.

A Strong Protest. The Commercial Motor Vehicles Transport, Association is working up a strong protest against the tendency to brand all motor drivers as criminals in the making, and it is organising a Motorists' Defence Association, for which all drivers of motor vehicles, including motor cvcles, will bo eligible. The C.M.V.T.A*. has requested Superintendent Lynch (actingPolice Commissioner) to arrange for a demonstration of the methods adopted by the police in tracking offenders and suggests that the official car shall be equipped with "a covered self-registering speedometer."

Mr. R. Fitzgerald, wlio is secretary of the C.M.V.T.A., lias written to the "Sydney Morning Herald" to point out that the clause of the Act under which most charges are laid—"driving in :i manner dangerous to the public safety" —may. as he puts it, 'mean anything." Under some conditions "a speed of from 20 to 40 miles an hour, even if the motorist slows down, pounds his horn at intersections and gives the correct signal when about to pass another vehicle, may he deemed to be driving dangerously." There is some point in the plea that the ambiguity of the law gives the police an advantage over the motorist all alongi the line. "Truth" protests that "the fanatical drive against the motorist" has succeeded in congesting the Courts, and exacting a huge mass of fines for trivial offences, but it has' done little more. "The time has come for the motoring public and the general public to demand more police efficiency in regard to major road crimes. It was the hit-and-run driver and the drunken driver that the present safety campaign set out to catch," and so far as these are concerned it lias not yet been a conspicuous success.