RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32775, 27 November 1971, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

PAINLESS EXTRACTION

When the introduction of P.A.Y.E. was first made there were many who were bitingly critical of the inovation holding the view that it was an unwieldly and topheavy’ arrangement and would not survive its birth pangs. But the malcontents of the day are perhaps the first to agree that their earlier fears were groundless and that the system, by general consensus, is far superior to the annual surprise packet workers at one time generally awaited with a sense of foreboding. And there is evidence, also that the immediate payment of traffic fines is finding favour. While some of the motoring public consider that the exist-

ing scale for speeding offences is inordinately severe and disproportionate, there are others who argue that it has a decided deterrent effect. And one man, in particular, who opines that it can be a salutary lesson. A few weeks ago he admonished his wife to beware of what he considered was a local speed trap. She was, and knew it, a conscious violator of many traffic by-laws—a cat and mouse game with officials was to her an exhilarating form of escapism. Her husband went on to tell her that in a certain section of Riccarton Road near their residence a friend of his was booked for travelling at 40 in that 30-mile per hour zone. •

Later in the day she was going through the pockets of her husband’s suit before sending it to the dry cleaner, she found a receipt for payment of a traffic fine for disobeying the speed limit in a 30 m.p.h. zone. She put the receipt in an envelope marked “For Future Reference” in which she kept household hints and cooking recipes. A few days later she had reason to remember the receipt. Pouring her husband’s morning coffee she said sweetly, "‘Remember that friend of yours who got a ticket for doing 40 in Riccarton Road? Well, guess what? Yesterday his wife got booked for the same reason.”