DOGS AND ROAD HOGS

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2311, 2 December 1925, Page 10

DOGS AND ROAD HOGS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I was pleased to see by this morning's paper that a speeding motorist who ran over a drover’s dog had been fined £lO and costs. The Magistrate’s judgment only erred on the side of leniency. As a driver of long and varied experience I confidently assert that not in one case- fn a thousand is there any excuse for running over a dog by daylight. The driver who docs so from not having his car under proper control is equally capable of running over a child, while if he does it from carelessness he is simply a callous bruts. In either case he is not fit to be trusted with a car. Domesticated animals have a prescriptive right to the use of the public highways, and the law acknowledges that a dog, and especially a drover’s dog, has every bit as much right to the road as a motor-oar. Motor drivers in England have repeatedly tried to get the courts to hold that dogs which are not oh the lead are not under proper control and that their owners are therefore not entitled to recover damages for injuries inflicted on them. But these efforts have not been successful, and the law recognises that although the plaintiff owner may have been. neglectful and the dog free and uncontrolled. yet, if the defendant driver could by the exercise of reasonable care have avoided the accident, tho plaintiff can still recover. To plead as some drivers do that a dog which is working sheep ran into the car 13 simply ridiculous. A good sheep dog watches his master and the sheep ho Is driving and is oblivious to everything. He cannot possibly understand the rule of the road or the local by-laws. Any reasonable motorist passing stock on the road should have his car under such complete control that It should he impossible for any dog to run into him.—-I am etc., CAREFUL DRIVER.