DRIVERS AND DRINK

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 283, 13 November 1936, Page 7

DRIVERS AND DRINK

Annual Examination For Elderly Men ROAD SAFETY COUNCIL By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, Nov. 12. At the meeting of the Road Safety Council to-day, after hearing the evidence of two medical men and an expert psychologist, the Council was unable to arrive at any standard of the amount of alcohol a man could consume with safety before driving a car. The doctors were agreed that the effect of alcohol depended largely on the man himself and that it would be almost impossible to frame a satisfactory rule. The Council decided to incorporate in the proposed booklet to be issued with licences educative matter dealing with the dangers of the effect of alcohol on motor-drivers. When discussing the effects of alcohol on the driver of a car Dr. S. R- Rhind submitted that there should be a more rigorous test for the physical fitness of drivers, and suggested that holders of licences over 60 years* of age should undergo an annual physical examination before the licence was reissued. Apart from the question of alcohol, said Dr. Rhind, the British Medical Association considered that there should be- a more rigorous test for physical disabilities and that anyone over a certain ago should be medically examined to see how his nervous system compared with average standards. The Minister of Transport, the Hon. R. Semple, who presided, said that one of the principal tasks of the Council was to examine the law during the recess so that anomalies could be removed when Parliament resumed. An amending Bill had been drafted and held over for the Council to consider before it was gone on with next session. The suggestion was that traffic control in smaller centres and rural areas should bo taken over by the Transport Department ' and that the fines and fees, which would amount to £30,000 or £40,000 a year, v.ould go into a fund to pay for control. Under the present system a person not entitled to a licence could get one by going to another local body, but if all the testing in rural ..nd semi-rural areas was done by traffic inspectors that would be corrected.