MAGISTRATE’S COURT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 255, 25 September 1933, Page 8

MAGISTRATE’S COURT

TRAFFIC BREACHES. Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., presided over a sitting of the Magistrate’s Court at Palmerston North to-day. George Godfrey Martin was charged with using a motor cycie without the properly assigned number plates aflixed, and also with using an unregistered motor cycle. His son, Leslie Albert Martin, was charged with two similar. offences. Senior-Sergeant Whitehouse said the charges were the culmination of the series of travels by the machine through about twenty different hands. The first-named defendant had traded in a machine which he had acquired and used its plates on a new one. On the suggestion of the Magistrate, the charges against defendants were reduced to one each. The defendant G. G. Martin stated that the first motor cycle was registered, but the number plates were never fixed to it, as it was towed to a shop and traded for a new one. He had acted in ignorance in using the same plates for the other machine. Fines of 10s were imposed on each defendant, the costs being fixed at 13s and 15s respectively. Ernest Frederick Stratton pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to possess a driver’s license. “This man was unfortunate,’’ observed Senior-Sergeant Whitehouse, who added that defendant had been driving a lorry for Mr Elliott when the steering-gear had failed and it had crashed into a bridge on the Kairanga-Bunnythorpe Road. A fine of 10s, with 10s costs, was imposed. Commenting that it was a fairly serious offence, the Magistrate inflicted a penalty of £2, with 10s costs, on Grenville Smith for driving a motor lorry without the vehicle having a reflecting mirror. For riding a cycle at night without a light, Walter Norman Vautier was fined 10s, with 3s costs. Charges of permitting one of its lorries to travel at a speed of over 25 miles an hour on Pike’s Road and of failing to possess a heavy traffic license were preferred against the New Zealand Farmers’ Dairy Union, Ltd. The manager (Mr H. G. Mills) appeared and entered a plea of guilty to both charges. Inspector W. Berry, for the Kairanga County Council, stated that complaints had been made of the overloading of the lorry. He found its weight to be 5 tons 3 cwt, when its legal limit was tons. The difference in the heavy traffic fee for the quarter was £1 14s. Complaints had also been made of its speed. He followed it for three miles and over two of these it maintained a speed of 33 miles an hour, which was in excess of the regulations. Mr Mills stated that it had been customary to take out a heavy traffic license on September 1 of each year, but this year a largely increased springsupply of butterfat had come to hand much more rapidly than was anticipated. The lorry had since been replaced by another truck. Fines of £2, with 10s costs, were imposed in respect of each charge. Fred Spencer was fined £2, with 10s costs, on a charge under the Police Offences Act. Ivy May Sommerville, aged 33, was charged with being deemed to he a rogue and vagabond. She was remanded 0 for a week for observation.