CHILDREN RIDING WITHOUT LIGHTS

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29270, 30 July 1960, Page 14

CHILDREN RIDING WITHOUT LIGHTS

Concern Expressed By Magistrate

Concern at the number of children jn the Hornby district riding bicycles at night without lights, after previously being warned by the district traffic officer, was expressed by Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., in the Children’s Court yesterday. Fifteen children, including one girl, their ages ranging from 12 to 16, appeared on charges of riding bicyples without lights—eight of them detected on the one night. The Magistrate warned the children, and a number of their parents, that they were following a most dangerous practice, for they could easily be injured or killed on . the roads at night if they rode unlighted bicycles. Parents, in allowing their children to do this, were simply "gambling with their children’s lives." the Magistrate said. The children had been warned about riding unlighted bicycles at their schools and by. the district traffic officer, but they had been ignored. Prosecutions had been brought to impress upon them the danger of the practice, the Magistrate said. Each of the children was fined ss. Some children faced two charges for having neither front nor rear lights.