“PROPOSAL UNSOUND”

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 257, 27 July 1936, Page 8

“PROPOSAL UNSOUND”

Hospitals and Motor Taxation ASSOCIATION’S VIEWPOINT The executive of the Automobile Association (Wellington) has issued a statement concerning the suggestion that hospital boards should be compensated from motor taxation for expenditure incurred iu treating motor vehicle accident cases. The statement, which is the work of a special sub-committee, is as follows:—

In the first place any suggestion that motor taxation should be charged with hospital expenses incurred by parties injured by motor vehicles contains an unwarranted assumption that motorists themselves are responsible for all accidents. An analysis issued by the Government Transport Department in regard to fatal accidents over a period of six years shows clearly that such an assumption is entirely erroneous This analysis reveals in accidents between motorists and pedestrians that pedestrians were at fault in two-thirds of the cases, while similar particulars taken out by the Ministry of Transport in England in 1935, covering 1500 fatal road accidents, showed that of the pedestrians killed, 85 per cent, were themselves the sole or main cause of It is well known that, if through negligence, a motorist injures or kills a third party, there is a right of recovery against him under a compulsory insurance contract, and legislation which motoring organ’sations themselves asked for is at present in existence under which hospital boards are given a charge on all money that is or may become payable in the form of damages. Special Kight of Recover}’.

To the extent, therefore, that the motorist is liable because of his negligence, hospital boards have a special right of recovery of fees, but there can be no justification for making the motorist liable for expenses incurred through the negligence of another party.

The suggestion to charge hospital fees against motor taxation follows the lines of a recent proposal that motorists be made liable for injury to any person, no matter what the cause of the accident, but this, in our opinion, introduces a dangerous principle. Such a proposal is in entire opposition to the principle that damages and expenses should be borne by the negligent party. Furthermore, in the knowledge that hospital boards could recover from motor taxation, there would be a tendency on the part of persons injured in motor vehicle accidents to escape their proper liability to the hospital authorities.

The association wishes to make it clear that it is not out of sympathy with the hospital boards, but the fact must not be overlooked that the boards already receive a pound-for-pouud subsidy from the Government, and in the light of all the circumstances there can be no justification for transferring the charge in respect of unpaid fees of a particular class of patient to a fund which, because it has remained buoyant, has been the subject of substantial raids in the past. Finally, all funds for hospital administration, after allowing for the Government subsidy, are provided by local authorities, all of whom receive substantial grants or subsidies from motor taxation. Therefore. any amounts paid direct to hospital boards from motor taxation would reflect themselves in the nature of reduced subsidies in other directions to the local authorities.