PUBLIC DANGER?

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 205, 29 August 1936, Page 11

PUBLIC DANGER?

SPEEDING MOTORISTS.

A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

MAGISTRATE OVERRULED

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, August 21

A few days ago Mr. ' Arnold, an experienced magistrate who has been on the Bench since 1907, convicted and fined a motorist brought before him for driving at an excessive and dangerous speed. The case went on appeal to Quarter Sessions last week, and Judge Thomson quashed the conviction. This reversal of judgment may seem a little startling, as there was no attempt to disprove the allegations of the police that -defendant had driven along Parramatta Road through Burwood and Croydon at high speed, passing blind intersections at 50 miles an hour. Even more remarkable, however, was the comment offered by Judge Thomson upon the case. He quoted the words of Mr. Arnold, S.M.: "The evidence is that defendant was travelling at 50 miles per hour across blind junctions, and if he travelled at that speed then he was driving at a speed dangerous to the public." On this the learned judge observed: "Certainly I do not agree with that remark. Other factors must be considered. If the magistrate is right then the police should haul up the ambulance almost every time, it It should be hardly necessary to point out that the reference to the ambulance is singularly inept. For in case of accidents it is tacitly assumed by the authorities that the public convenience and even the possibilities of danger must be subordinated to the immediate needs of patients who are being rushed to hospital, just as fire brigades are allowed to drive "in a manner dangerous to tin public" in crowded streets, with the object of arresting greater prospective calamities.

Public Alarmed. However, this is a side issue, End public interest has concentrated chiefly on the other aspects of the judge's remarks, summed up in a compact little aphorism —"Speed alone is not an indication of danger." This may sound all very well as an abstract principle, but when one remembers that the "other factors" which the judge accepts as extenuating circumstances admittedly included in this particular case, "travelling at 50 miles per hour across blind junctions," it is easy to conceive the alarm and dismay that Judge Thomson's decision produced on the public mind.

Mr. Arnold, whose ruling was quashed, has not hesitated to speak his mind. He told the "Daily Telegraph" that he has frequently announced from the Bench that in his opinion speed alone does not constitute dangerous driving; but in the case in question the fact that blind intersections on a great public highway were passed at 50 miles per hour made all the difference. Mr. Arnold is himself a licensed driver, and he reminds Judge Thomson that is supposed to reduce speed at blind junctions the defendants in traffic Court cases always maintaining that they have done so. Mr. Arnold, naturally, can see no sound reason for Judge Thomson's decision, and he thinks that "it will cause a complete debacle" in the administration of traffic law. Importance of "Other Factors." In this respect Mr. Arnold's prediction is already being fulfilled. Since Judge Thomson announced his views on this matter the traffic magistrate, Mr. Parker, has had to deal with several _ cases in which appeals were made against conviction and fine on the ground that "speed alone is not dangerous." Mr. Parker agreefc with Judge Thomson in the abstract, but he has been compelled to emphasise the importance of the other factors, which in such cases often constitute a grave menace to the public safety.

In one case a man was fined for driving at from 45 to 55 m.p.h. along Anzac Parade, and counsel appealed on his behalf to the principle laid down by Judge Thomson. Mr. Parker, however, found on inquiry that the driver had kept up this rate of speed for nearly three miles —Anzac Parade is often a thickly congested thoroughfare—and that he was racing another car all the way. ' In a second case, protest against conviction was based again on Judge

Thomson's maxim, but Mr. Parker found, that defendant had not only driven at 60 m.p.h. along Pacific Highway (the main northern outlet from Sydney), but that he had taken many of the bends at 50 m.p.h. The latter fact, in the traffic magistrate's opinion, constituted & serious danger to other drivers and to the pedestrian public. It is already evident that "road hogs" and other offenders against traffic regulations are prepared to exploit Judge Thomson's decision to the utmost to protect themselves, and it is to be hoped that, in the public interest, this judicial decision shall b© reversed or at least modified so as to prevent reckless and irresponsible motor drivers from sheltering themselves behind it.