THE MENACE OF THE DRINKING DRIVER

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27075, 25 June 1953, Page 8

THE MENACE OF THE DRINKING DRIVER

NINE DEADLY HOURS

[By ALAN HARDCASTLE} [l]

The drinking driver —drunk and semi-drunk—is the deadliest menace on the roads of this country. All but those who are irresponsible demand that he be put off and kept off the roads; but because of limited patrolling and difficulties of detection and oi securing conviction of the borderline driver (often more dangerous than the downright drunk) no headway is m Fewer convictions are being secured today than in the pre-war years, when the volume of traffic was less than nan that of 1953. Now new difficulties arise of opinion as to what evidence should be placed before the courts. ~ Is medical evidence needed? Should police evidence alone suffice* Doctors differ; courts differ; police and patrols differ in their views as to the appropriate form of evidence. If there are still some who deny that the drinking Stiver contributes heavily to road deaths let them refer to the Transport Department’s bulletins ana reports. They are right to the point: 1. Drink was in the background of 50 of 150 consecutive road deaths investigated by New Zealand coroners. 2. Over half the 7520 casualties last year were suffered on three days of ihe week—Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. . , , 3. Saturday, lowest in week-day traffic, is highest in death and injury. 4. One-seventh of injury accidents and one-sixth of all fatal accidents occurred last year between 5 p.m. Saturdays and 2 a.m. Sundays. Those nine hours are but oneeighteenth of the week’s hours. The roads are then clear of commercial traffic, and in only four of the nine is there any real volume of pleasure traffic. Yet those are the death hours. IN THEIR RELATION TO TRAFFIC VOLUME, THOSE NINE HOURS ARE TEN TIMES AS DEADLY AS ANY NINE-HOUR SPAN OF WORKADAY TRAFFIC. Not all those '5 p.m. Saturday-2 a.m. Sunday tragedies and maimings were due to drinking-driv-ing, of course; but many were. Safety Council’s Quandary The new difficulty over evidence began in the reluctance of the great majority of doctors to examine suspected drivers. Their several reasons are outside this article. The fact is that most doctors do decline to examine suspects when called by the police. This attitude of doctors and the lapse of time between the apprehension of the suspect and medical examination were the problems before the Road Safety Council when it sought some effective way of dealing with the drunken driver, and more particularly with the driver who is “nicely lit up.” Advised by spokesmen for the British Medical Association that experienced police and traffic officers are as competent and qualified as doctors to give evidence in such cases, the Safety Council asked the Minister of Transport to make recommendations to the courts to that effect. The recommendations did not go forward to the courts. From any angle it is not an acceptable solution. The reluctance of many doctors has now hardened into flat refusal. Some magistrates have indicated thnt they must have medical evidence. The reason is that there is something of a

presupposition of guilt when the police or patrols, are the accusers. Are th® police to be the sole judges, not only nf fitness to drive, but also of what evi dence the court shall hear? TheorethZ ally, the suspect can call his own doctor. Time and again he cannot eXt a doctor. NO MAT! ER IN WHat HIGH ESTEEM THE POLICING FORCES MAY BE HELD, THE PUr! LIC WILL NOT HAVE ONE-SIDED JUSTICE. The arrests of a pedestrian drunk and of a driving drunk are not parallel Police evidence is seldom questioned when a pedestrian drunk is charged, simply because the drunk on foot is tolerated unless he is “a proper job** The worst menace on the roads is not the “job” at the wheel, but the semidrunken fool whose judgment goes to pieces in emergency, and who carries his own emergencies—built-in. For Justice, A Referee Those who are charged with the crime of drunken driving must have balanced justice; otherwise, courts will acquit, giving them the benefit of the doubt, and the campaign against the drunken driver will fail. There must be a referee. The Safety Council, of course, recognised this, but saw no solution. To a proposal that suspects should be examined at hospitals the answer was given: “The hospitals have quite enough to do”; and that proposal wag not pursued further. The appointment of a police doctor was briefly dismissed, the chairman remarking: “I think . . . we can drop the medical officer unless he is asked for by the man.” In either case the delay between apprehension and examination at a single central point would defeat what the Safety Council wants to do. If the addled driver is to be put off the roads, the suspect driver must have a referee: and the referee must be close at hand —not brought in an hour later when the suspect has cooled down of taken a grip of himself. A Wellington doctor has suggested that magistrates, not doctors, should look the suspect over. That is not practicable judicially. The magistrate’! job is to hear the evidence, not to place himself in the position of an expert witness. A leader of the Bar has proposed that a panel of responsible, fair-minded citizens should be appointed for this duty. But what citizens? Citizens differ about drinking. Thought about drinking-driving is so confused and haphazard that the Transport Department in one report names the drinking driver as a root cause of one in every three or four road tragedies, and in the next omits all reference to this road crime TWO MEANS ARE NEEDED TO DEAL WITH THE DRUNKEN DRIVER. THE FIRST IS ADEQUATE PATROLLING OF THE ROADS. THE SECOND IS A YARDSTICK BY WHICH TO MEASURE THE FITNESS OF THE SUSPECT TO DRIVE. THE FIRST CAN BE PROVIDED, IF AND WHEN THE GOVERNMENT WISHES. THE SECOND IS ALREADY PROVIDED, BUT IS NOT AVAILED OFEXCEPT AFTER DEATH. THAT IS THE BLOOD TEST. Its meaning and the way in which it can operate will be discussed in a subsequent article.