MOTOR REGULATIONS

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 March 1930, Page 5

MOTOR REGULATIONS

AN INTERESTING POINT. (Per Frees Association.) MASTERTON, March 14. An interesting point in motor law was raised in the Magistrate’s Court to-day as to the extent, to which a garage proprietor is entitled in the course of business to lend cars bearing his dealer’s number plates to customers. The case was one in which D. G. .Johnston, of Carterton, garage proprietor. was charged with permitting one of his cars bearing the garage number plates to be used by customers. and B. M. Hurley, of Carterton, was charged with using the car. Counsel for defendants said the defence was on a point of. law, as the facts were admitted. Hurley had taken his car to Johnston’s garage lor repairs, and had accepted the loan of a. garage ear in order to visit a district. in which he lurd an urgent business. The practice of lending out garage cars in such circumstances, counsel held, was common in Wairarnpa. am! elsewhere in Now Zealand. He contended that the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1927. allowed a, dealer to use the number plates is-

sued to him in the course of his business of a garage. The Magistrate, Mr .1. Miller, reserved his decision.