80 M.P.H. NOT DANGEROUS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 26, 30 July 1937, Page 8

80 M.P.H. NOT DANGEROUS

From the purely legal point of view the Timaru.Magistrate (Mr. H. Morgan) was probably on safe ground in refusing to hold, in a case where a motorist was prosecuted for driving at an excessive speed,on a Canterbury road, that 80-miles an hour under the circumstances was dangerous. The law prescribes no speed limit for the road, except in cities and boroughs and other defined areas or stretches of highway, where the limit is 30 miles per hour. The overriding provision in the law is one that permits prosecution on a charge of "driving in a manner which, having regard to all the circumstances, is dangerous to the public." It was under this provision that action was taken in the Timaru Court against a motorist who had admittedly driven at 80 miles an hour at Sclwyn. It was also admitted by the inspector who prosecuted that the road, at that particular stretch, was "clear, straight, open, -with no intersections." In reply to the defendant, he agreed that the weather at the time was fine,, that it was broad daylight, and that it would be hard lo find a more perfect road surface. Though -the conditions were favourable, the inspector reiterated his contention that in. the circumstances a speed of 80 miles an hour was dangerous. The case was "somewhat in the nature of a lest case" and he had submitted a full report to the Department and had been instructed to proceed. "The Department, 'maintains," he said, "that speeds in excess of 69 miles an hour are dangerous on any type of road.", ' The Magistrate lhcn acquitted the defendant, "fimh"ng it not proven lhat the speed might have been dangerous and lhat "this all depends on the driver and the road circumstances. If there is to be any fixed speed on any road it is a duly for the Legislature l.b sec lo it." While the Magistrate may have been legally in the right,, we can hardly feel satisfied that it is in the public interest to hold lhat a speed of 80 miles an h olir __ancl it might well have been 90 or 100—is permissible on New Zealand roads. Even the Department's unofficial 69 miles an bomseems ridiculously generous "under the circumstances." There arc thousands of cars in New Zealand capable of doing a mile a minute or more on the roads and if drivers are

led to conclude that they can "step on the gas' ad lib. without, fear of conviction we feel there will be a rise in the accident rate the Minister of Transport and the whole community are so anxious to sec reduced. There is, however, one virtue in the Magistrate's decision: he leaves it to the Legislature to settle road speed limits, and to ' the Legislature it should go.