Rise In Drunken Driving

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31786, 17 September 1968, Page 24

Rise In Drunken Driving

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, September 16. The public conscience must be awakened on the matter of drunken drivers, Mr J. D. Murray, SJM„ said in the Magistrate’s Court today. The number of motorists charged with driving while under the influence of drink or drugs had increased by 50 per cent in the last year, he said.

“I have referred to this Increasing incidence on several occasions and figures 1 have taken out show jjist how serious the situation in this area is,” he said. In the 11 months preceding the introduction ot later drinking 73 drivers were apprehended, and in the 11 months since then, 110 drivers were charged. This increase of 50 per cent was in the face of the assertion that there was more active surveillance by the police since 10 o’clock drinking. On the contrary, the greater proportion of these charges arose from accidents, or from complaints reported to the police. “There is great significance in the fact that blood analyses are revealing a much higher alcohol content in the drivers’ systems.

“The Courts here have been at pains to bring home the seriousness of this situation by deterrent sentences involving longer disqualifications and imprisonment This has obviously failed.

“Drunken drivers must be regarded in the light that they are a menace on the road, not with a ‘Bad luck, old chap’ attitude,” he said. It was also patently obvious that most drivers consenting to blood tests in the confident expectation that their fitness to drive would be confirmed had no idea of their condition. Appearing today on his

second charge of drunken driving, David Andrew Boyes, aged 48, a welder, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment, and disqualified from driving for 10 years. Boyes was arrested in Great King Street at 8.16 p.m. on September 11 after he hit a stationary car at a give-way sign. A blood analysis showed a ratio of 260 milligrams of alcohol to 100 millilitres of blood.