SUPREME CO CRT “Courts Must Lend Aid To Reduce Road Toll”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31153, 1 September 1966, Page 8

SUPREME CO CRT “Courts Must Lend Aid To Reduce Road Toll”

The courts must lend their aid to the attempts being made to reduce the accident toll on the roads, said Mr Justice Wilson in the Supreme Court yesterday, when dismissing two appeals against disqualification from driving. Brian Francis Johns, aged 20, a Borstal inmate (Mr H. O. Jacobsen) had appealed against five years’ disqualification for reckless driving—having raced another youth in a car on the Main South road, and then collided head-on with a second car by entering the Sockburn underpass the wrong way. Paul Richard Dunn, aged 20, a motor mechanic (Mr B. S. McLaughlin) had appealed against two years’ disqualification, and a fine of £3O,

for driving in a manner which might have been dangerous—having overtaken a car on a blind bend of Dyers Pass road while ascending the hill. “Offences of this sort must be dealt with with some severity," said his Honour, in upholding the penalties imposed. “No Excuse” Johns had many convictions for both criminal and motoring offences, conceded Mr Mr Jacobsen, and there could be no excuse for his driving on this occasion— but the disqualification was appealed against as excessive. Johns said he had lived in the Sockburn area for some years, and on returning to Christchurch after an absence had been caught unaware of the oneway entry to the underpass.

Mr C. M. Roper (for the police) submitted that Johns's offence had not been a momentary lapse, but a prolonged affair ending in a head-on collision. Having regard to his list of offences, the disqualification was not excessive. “You don’t need to go any further,” said his Honour. “It would be hard to describe a more reckless piece of driving. It was completely without sense of responsibility—and it is open to doubt whether he should ever be allowed to drive a vehicle.” “While people drive in that way, the toll of life and property will continue to mount,” his Honour said. List “Bad Enough” Mr McLaughlin said that although Dunn had a list of traffic convictions bad enough, there was no evidence of oncoming traffic on Dyers Pass road, and no injury to anyone, so that in all the circumstances two years’ disqualification was excessive, especially in view of his occupation. His Honour said: “My view is that the same penalty should be meted out to a mechanic, or a taxi-driver, for bad driving as to anybody else.” Mr McLaughlin said he must agree but suggested that one year’s disqualification (the minimum for the offence) would be an appropriate penalty. His Honour said that Dunn, in ascending Dyers Pass road, had first overtaken a bus in the face of an oncoming car “with very little to spare,” and had then overtaken on the blind bend at Whisby road. “I am unable to say that two years’ disqualification for this sort of driving offence was excessive,” his Honour said. “Nothing In His Favour” “There is nothing which can be said in this man’s favour,” said his Honour, dismissing an appeal by Barry John Richards, aged 27, a rausterer, against two years’ imprisonment for burglary of a hotel in Dunedin on July 5. Richards, said his Honour, had a substantial list of previous offences, and appeared deliberately to have chosen a career of crime. Richards was not represented by counsel, nor did he appear, but made written submissions that his sentence was excessive, on the ground that the burglary had not been premeditated. Richards wrote that he had gone to the hotel with a friend who knew the proprietor, but on getting no response to their knock they had gone in, helped themselves to “a few drinks,” and then taken cash from the till. His Honour said that Richards had conveniently omitted say l ng that they had scaled a wall to enter the hotel back yard, and after entering through an unlocked door had got into another bar-room, where £4O had been stolen from the cash registers.