TAXI SPEEDOMETERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 259, 30 September 1936, Page 3

TAXI SPEEDOMETERS.

ALLEGATION OF TAMPERING. INQUIRY AT CHRISTCHURCH. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Sept. 29. All allegation that he had been defrauded ot hundreds of pounds yearly by drivers who manipulated the speedometers was made by C. fc>. Trillo, proprietor of Goal Band Taxis, when the committee ot inquiry into the taxi and carrying business began its Christchurch sitting this morning. Trillo made the allegation when cross-exam-ining a. witness, George Bono, a former employee, who hud been giving evidence about the conditions under which the drivers on commission worked. Bone said that when Gold Band Taxis increased its ileet some years ago, the amount drivers could earn was brought down so that it' afforded only the barest living. This led to tampering with the speedometers, driving in reverse, and winding the speedometer with the car jacked up. Trillo said this speedometer manipulation business was a serious matter. Drivers were getting away with hundreds of pounds a year. He produced a sketch which he said depicted “Professor Bone, inventor of the speedometer manipulator.” Bone: You could never accuse me of robbing you Trillo: M hat were you put off lorr Bone: I was put off on suspicion. Trillo: Didn’t you do a trip to Tiiriaru for Is 6d ? —Never. Trillo: Or a trip to Southbridge for Is?—No.

Bone repeated his former statement that in Trillo’s employ the drivers could not earn more than 35s weekly, and many earned very much less. If they could earn more they would not go on relief work. Witnesses gave evidence of drivers making a practice of going to sleep in the cars. Trillo said he knew one owner-driver who actually kept pyjamas in the car and put them on liefore going to sleep. This man also shaved in his car and cooked.'ln his * Bone said he had seen Gold Band drivers curled up in a car under rugs, sound asleep. He had seen drivers asleep on the floor of Trillo’s garage with the cars on the stand unattended.