STOLEN MOTOR-RIDES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18631, 12 February 1924, Page 6

STOLEN MOTOR-RIDES.

The passing of a sentence of imprisonment on two young men admitting a number of charges of converting to their own use motor-cars left in the street will perhaps bring better realisation of the penalties attached to this offence. Those whose fingers itch to be on a steer-ing-wheel, lawfully or otherwise, should remember that legislation passed of recent years provides punishment of considerable severity in such cases. Lest the penalties should seem unduly harsh, it should be recalled that there were times when to use a horse in a similar way, to take it, ride it, and then abandon it, would have brought much more serious consequences on the head of the offender. Those who are inclined to regard " joy-riding " in other people's cars as a very venial sin need a reminder that the property of a motor-owner is entitled to as much respect and protection as any other class of property. In one of the charges before the Court yesterday, the offenders had made off with a taxicab, thus threatening the livelihood of the owner. A car taken thus without authority is seldom abandoned before it has suffered some degree of injury, There is, moreover, another consideration to be taken into account. The illicit use of a car taken off the street is a direct incitement to reckless driving; public safety is thus involved. The knowledge that the law is already broken makes the disregard of road regulations and traffic by-laws decidedly a minor matter. It is not, therefore, as a special concession to motor-car owners that the present scale of penalties for " unlawful conversion" has been instituted. The offence, in substance and in essence, is the breach of laws which existed long before motor-cars were known. It is something more than a mere ebullition of animal spirits which the law seeks to suppress in meting out punishment to those who lightheartedly drive off with any motorcar they may find unattended in the street.