DRIVING LICENSES

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 266, 5 August 1932, Page 10

DRIVING LICENSES

Demand for Production HUTT PROSECUTIONS Magistrate Dismisses Cases “The law is not made for the purpose of multiplying offences and I shall not allow it to be so used,” said Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., at Lower Hutt on Wednesday, when dismissing a number of cases brought by the Lower Hutt borough inspectors against motorists who hud failed to produce their driving licenses. Mr. Woodward dismissed the prosecutions under section 93 of the Justices of the Peace Act as being trivial. In announcing his decision, Mr. Woodward said: —

“It seems to me that to allow a motorist who has not his license with him a later opportunity to produce it would not render the section ineffective in any way. The conclusion I have come to is that defendants have committed a breach of the law, but, under the circumstances, 1 do not think that the section has been administered in a reasonable way. Until I am over-ruled I shall continue to act in that way—namely, to dismiss prosecutions of this nature as trivial, unless opportunities are given to produce licenses within what I think is a reasonable time.”

Evidence showed that the course which a borough inspector took was to stop a motorist and ask for his license to be produced. The inspectors, in the cases which came before the magistrate, were assured by the drivers that licenses had been taken out, but that they ffad overlooked taking the licenses with them. The motorists were not asked to produce the licenses later, and evidence was given by some of the defendants that they had been led by remarks of the inspectors to believe that the latter were satisfied. The chief inspector admitted, in cross examination, that he did not ask any defendant to produce his license later, or in any case refer to the production later of a license, and that he had instructed his juniors not to refer to a later production of a license. The Wellington Automobile Club instructed its solicitor to defend all the prosecutions, on the ground, apart from legal grounds, that the action of the inspectors was against an established practice in the city, and was an arbitrary and unfair course, and that it was grossly unfair to a motorist to prosecute him when his failure to have his license with him was a pure oversight, and when he was deliberately not invited to produce the license at a later period. Counsel pointed out that it is the practice for city traffic inspectors to give a motorist, who states he has taken out a license, but. through oversight, has omitted to take it with him on a journey, an opportunity of pro--duclng the license a little later on.