SPEED TRAPS

Evening Star, Issue 22069, 1 July 1935, Page 13

SPEED TRAPS

WHEN IT IS LAWFUL TO GIVE WARNING Is it lawful to warn a fellow-motorisi of the existence of a police trap or that the plain-clothes patrols are on the warpath ? asks the London ‘ Daily Telegraph.’ At a London police court a witness who gave evidence of having given such warning was asked by,the magistrate if he was aware that he was committing an offence in so doing. A correspondent drawing attention to this case suggests that it is surely a strange' doctrine if it is wrong to take steps to prevent another breaking the law, seeing that the primary duty of the police themselves is the prevention of crime.

This question was fought out years ago in the early days of the Automobile Association. In fact, as Sir Stenson Cooke records in ‘ This Motoring,’ it became at one period a life-and-death question for that then youthful body.

A position was ultimately established which held good up to the abolition of the old speed limit at the end of 1930. Probably before very long the question will be reopened and redecided.

The position was, briefly, that you could warn a driver of the existence of a trap or of the proximity of the police provided he was not already in the trap or exceeding the speed limit. It is legitimate to take steps to prevent a crime, but not to take steps to prevent _ another being caught in its commission.

Thus if a driver is exceeding the limit in a restricted area you are helping him to defeat the cause of justice if you warn him that the police are on the watch. But.it is not, or was not, held to be an offence to warn a man who is observing tho law that there is a trap ahead to catch* him should he start breaking the law.