CAR CONFISCATION PROPOSED IN DRUNKEN DRIVING CASES

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28362, 22 August 1957, Page 14

CAR CONFISCATION PROPOSED IN DRUNKEN DRIVING CASES

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, August 21. The Government 'was urged in the House of Representatives today to consider legislation providing for the confiscation of cars driven by persons convicted of drunken driving. Mr J. G. Barnes (Government, St Kilda) said that fishermen could have their gear and boats confiscated for fishing in prohibited areas. Why should not the same principle apply to persons endangering the lives of others? Mr Barnes, the chairman of one of the House’s Public Petitions Committtees, was reporting on a petition by 1364 residents of Upper Hutt, Wellington. After two deaths caused through drunken driving in their district they petitioned the Government to review and rewrite the law to reduce the incidence of drunken driving. The Petitions Committee recommended that the petition be referred to the Governmnt for most favourable consideration. Mr Barnes said that he was sure that had the petition been circulated more widely in New Zealand, hundreds of thousands of persons would have signed it. Incensed The residents of Upper Hutt had been so incensed by the penalties imposed on the two drunken drivers that they had decided to take action. It was granted that only the Court was in possession of all the facts in imposing a penalty, but in one case a driver, convicted th»e months previously for the offence and fined £5O, had received only 12 months’ goal

after killing a person while drunk ! in charge. “We are duty bound to take a very serious view of such sen- ■ fences,” said Mr Barnes. s The toll of drunken drivers on f the road read like a casualty list from a battlefield. In 1954 there , had been 130 convictions for i drunken driving, involving 21 s deaths; in 1955, 145 convictions

and 25 deaths; and in 1956, 143 convictions and 20 deaths.

Different Charge Mr Barnes said that the petitioners had urged that drunken drivers causing death on the roads should be charged with manslaughter. There was provision for this, but juries were reluctant to bring verdicts of guilty in these cases, with the result that the offenders escaped any penalty. If, perhaps, the maximum penalty for drunken driving were increased from five years’ to 20 years’ imprisonment magistrates would be preparea to impose heavier sentences. There was also a case for the confiscation of cars driven by convicted drivers. When the committee had discussed the petition, an interesting sidelight had been brought forward that in some cases the penalties might at present be too severe. Under the present law, a motorist who had had too much to drink and tried to sleep it off in the back seat of his car could be convicted of being intoxicated in charge. The fact that he could be convicted for this might encourage him to take a chance and drive home, which would be a far more dangerous offence.