Demerit Points System

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31754, 10 August 1968, Page 12

Demerit Points System

Sir,—ln only 16 months one motorist in every 14 has been caught committing a serious traffic offence; 14,000 have been convicted twice. Those who offended again in such a short period should have been put off the roads as potential killers. The demerit system is plain nonsense, as shown by the list of offences for which the maximum 40 points are allocated. Magistrates who do not disqualify a driver for any one of these offences are not doing their jobs. This cumbersome, costly, wasteful system is merely the refuge of a Transport Department which stubbornly refuses to face the fact that death and Injury on the roads mean bad driving. The points system permits bad drivers to remain on the roads longer than straight-out court disqualifications, which should be mandatory for a second driving conviction. —Yours, VARIAN J. WILSON.

August 4, 1968. [The Commissioner of Transport (Mr R. J. Polaschek) replies: “The demerit points system is not designed principally to disqualify drivers. Its main purpose is to identify and rehabilitate those drivers who have been convicted for a series of offences and to jolt them into a realisation of the dangers to themselves and others if they continue in the course they are following. The law still gives the courts wide powers to disqualify drivers for individual offences if, on the facts, this is necessary, and the court bears this in mind when passing sentence.”]