CHARGE OF SPEEDING

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 148, 19 December 1929, Page 21

CHARGE OF SPEEDING

A SUCCESSFUL DEFENCE

. On the ground that the traffic sign* erected by the Lower Hutt Borough Council failed to comply with the Motor Regulations, a charge against D. C. D'Arcy o£ riding a motor-cycle from the V.I.C. corner to the old Military road, Lower Hutt, at a greater speed than twenty-five injfcs an hour, was defended in the Magistrate's Court recently before Mr. T. B. ■M'ifeil, S.M. After hearing the evidence, the Magistrate reserved his decision, which be delivered on Tuesday. The information was dismissed.

The defendant pleaded that he had a good defence under clause 23 of Regulation 16, of the Motor Regulations under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1924, which reads: "It shall be a defence to any person charged with driving a motor vehicle at a speed in excess of a speed limit imposed under clause 3 of Regulation 15, if such person proves that at the time and place of the alleged offence, the traffic signs required by clause 12 were' not duly erected and maintained." It was contended that the council's traffic signs did not comply with the Regulations in two reupects: (1) That the signs erected at the northern and southern ends of the Main Hutt road at the borough boundaries, while complying with all other requirements of a class D sign under the Regulations, did not include the word "local restriction"; (2) that the number of signs were insufficient to comply with clause 12 of Regulation 16. On his journey, it was stated that the only sign the defendant passed was a studded sign marked "25 m.p.h.," without the words, "local restriction" and that was at the southern entrance to the borough. It was shown that the distance from this sign to the V.I.C. corner, via Melling, was approximately a mile and a half or two miles.. ■

In his judgment Mr. M*Neil said that as the provisions for the erection of signs was to inform motorists of, and so regulate, speed limits, and was thus for the protection of,the public, and it was desirable that there should be uniformity in tho form; cf the signs, so that motorists might know exactly what the signs intended to convey. "This object," added the Magistrate, "may be attained by local , authorities complying strictly with the Regulations', and iising the diagrams given in the second schedule. ... I therefore think that as the only sign which defendant passed on his route was not a class D sign, the prosecution fails, and the information is dismissed."

At the hearing of the case Mr. E. P. Bunny appeared for the Lower Hutt Traffic Inspector, who brought the prosecution, and Mr. P. Keesing for the defendant.