HEAVILY FINED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 41, 18 February 1944, Page 6

HEAVILY FINED

TRAFFIC OFFENDER

S.M.'S 'EXPENSIVE LANGUAGE'

(0.C.) WHANGAREI, this day. "Because small fines have proved effective the Courts in the past have not inflicted the maximum or severe penalties provided in the law for traffic offences, but there are some offenders who decide that it is cheaper to take the fines as they come and put them down to profit and loss. This is one of those offenders, and I am going to talk another language to him, an expensive language," said Mr. Raymond Ferner, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court to-day, in imposing fines totalling £25, with £2 2/ costs, on Cyril Shortland, of Omahuta, owner-operator of a truck driven by Tom Oneroa for the Rangiahua Sawmilling Company. A traffic inspector said the truck was not carrying a certificate of fitness, vehicular authority or heavy traffic identification disc. He added that if the provisions of the law were not complied with there was no means of checking on a vehicle's status, whether it was stolen or not, in a safe condition to operate, or being used properly. The magistrate in imposing the penalty referred to Shortland's list of traffic offences, and reminded him that the Court had directed the traffic inspector to warn him in writing of heavier penalties for future breaches.