THEFT OF MOTOR CARS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 63, 10 February 1933, Page 6

THEFT OF MOTOR CARS.

Under the law as it stands at present the maximum penalty for the unlawful conversion of. a motor car is three months’ imprisonment. In very few cases is the maximum imposed, yet every day, especially m the principal cities, such conversions—they are really thefts —take place while motorists as a body in exasperation make futile requests to the Department of Justice to increase the penalty allowable. Further attention to this subject was directed by the president of the North Island Motor Union at the conference of that body this week, following which it was resolved to seek the assistance of the Transport Department in having the law amended, - it being said that the Department of Justice had failed to respond to the requests of the union in the direction named. There is little need to cite cases of this kind of theft. The majority of those who read the daily papers and motorists themselves are well acquainted with the frequency with which they occur. In the majority of cases cars are taken from one spot, used for a “joy ride,” and abandoned in aontlier place, more often than not because the fuel supply has; given out. But in too many cases serious damage is done to the vehicles. Cars have been run over cliff's and wrecked, set fire to and totally destroyed, or so badly interfered with that the repair bill is a costly one. That the law can permit such a state of affairs to continue, and from the frequency of reports, grow, passes comprehension. Yet it does so. The opinion was expressed at the Motor Union Conference that when the Justice Department was approached in the past the impression was given that, if more severe penalties for unlawful conversion were made possible, it would be more difficult to secure convictions—that trials by juries would be taken advantage of and that juries would be more reluctant to convict for straight-out theft than perhaps magistrates would. That may be so, but the -fact is that the evil remains, and apparently nothing is being done by the Justice Department to strengthen the hands of the police when they do secure convictions. It is difficult to comprehend why the man who steals a loaf of bread should be dealt with under a different law from him who steals a motor car, even though the latter may abandon the object of his theft. The Motor Union now having decided

to lay its complaint before the Transport Department, it is hoped by those conversant with the subject that its elforts will succeed. In the meantime, if magistrates were to deal out the maximum dose of legal medicine to every converter of cars, perhaps there would be a' falling off in such offences. Apart from the loss to the motorist there has to be taken into account the fact that those converting vehicles to their own use frequently endanger human life because of their lack of knowledge of the car converted, or because of their harebrained desire for sensational speed.