Parents Urged To Keep Cars At Home

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 3

Parents Urged To Keep Cars At Home

(New Zealand Press Association) GISBORNE, June 20. The Poverty Bay and East Coast division of the British Medical Association, in an attempt to reduce the number of teen-age road deaths, is trying to persuade parents to stop their children driving to parties.

Representatives of doctors last week held a meeting with the Gisborne stipendiary magistrate (Mr L. N. Ritchie), traffic officers, the Gisborne Road Safety Committee and the Taxi Society. They decided to call a public meeting soon. The meeting felt that the use of family cars for attending parties had become so accepted that parents were reluctant to be “the odd man out” by refusing children permission to drive.

; But if parents could be organised children would no ' longer be able to play off one set of parents against the ■ other. ; Greater use of the taxi service at night was urged as an ' alternative to driving. > There was no intention to ■ stop party-going or to inter- • fere with the normal social - activities of teen-agers. Howi ever, the question of fatigue i arose, especially when parties lasted until after midnight.