MOTOR LICENCES

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 101, 26 October 1932, Page 7

MOTOR LICENCES

DEALERS' PLATES

USE ON SUNDAYS

Another prosecution in connection witi the üße o£ motor"'dealers' number plates on Sundays -was brought by the police at the Magistrate's..., Court yesterday afternoon, when 'itjro;. employees o£ .Messrs. Wright,. -Stephengon, and Company, - Richard "fe'Thomais'; 1 clerk, and Frederick . R. Craig, motor sales manager, ; wera charged with using unlicensed motor-cars. Senior-Sergeant DempSey, who conducted the prosecution^ -said that the information was laid under ithe Motor Vehicles! Act, 1924, which provided that a motor manufacturer ,or. dealer "y could' use an unregistered and unlicensed "motor-car under certain conditions. In 1927 the Act was amended enaDKng--a'-jnj6tor manufacturer or desjlerj.'^d ijse.-an; .unlicensed car for the purpose' of'hfs" \Kusiness provided dealers'^Ta^'s^wefV-Titt&ehed. : On a recent Sunday Thomas'and Craig were stopped when they were driving cars with dealers' plates-attached. In a statementH'©Qmas "saici' he ' had been granted the use of the car by Wright, Stephensqn's- as; a privilege. On the Sunday he had driven from his home on The Terrace; to the firm's garage, and then to Miramar, where he had played tennis. He "said that he used the car for pleasure purposes. Craig, the Bales manager, who also was stopped on a Sunday when -he-was driving one of his firm7* cars fitted, with dealers' plates, said in a statement that he had driven from his home at.Khandallah to the firm's garage." He had; then- driven to Oriental Bay to visits some friends and then back to Khandallah.. _. _. : f. Senior-Sergeant t)empsey submitted' that-the:cars^ had been:used for the purposes" of pleasure and that under such circumstances they should be licensed ia the usual ;way. ~ Mr. W. P. Rollings, for the defendants,, who pleaded 'ndt' guilty, submitted (1) that the vehicles were used by representatives of the company, which in thi» case was the dealer; (2) that motor vehicles did not have to be used solely for the purposes of sale; (3) that" the vehicles were held by the company in connection with its", business and that it was entitled to use them on any street or road provided-, they . w.ere fitted with dealers' pjafces? Mr.-Rollings also submitted that there .was nothing in th« Act-to: .prurient. (tljs-^Smpany using th« cars on' a "Sunday. After' hearitig' J;tlie' evidence of the d«fendaritfl, 'HKe" liMagistrate, Mr. W. H. Woodward,-jeserved-his decision.