RECKLESS MOTORISTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19144, 9 October 1925, Page 8

RECKLESS MOTORISTS.

That the magistrate who fined a motorist for reckless speeding should himself have laid the information invests the Blenheim case with peculiar interest. He certainly demonstrated the sincerity of his opinion that the police should have the co-operation of others in bringing such motorists to book. His action is timely. Accidents occasioned by speeding are ail too common. There is evidence that they are increasing, and they have been so often accompanied with fatal consequences that drastic action is necessitated. Most motorists, it may be truthfully said, exercise all requisite care; but it is common knowledge that many do not. They are a peril to other motorists, and, as for pedestrians essaying to cross where these speed fiends pursue their recklesß way, there is some point in the grim jest that they may be divided into the quick and the dead. It would be well for private citizens to assist in convincing this sort of motorist that even pedestrians have rights that do not stop with the footpath. The highway, in law, is the King's, not the motorist's ; and the effect of that principle is to give legal safeguard to all who reasonably foot it. That they should take precautions, in a day of speedy wheeled traffic, goes without saying; but it is equally obvious that those who avail themselves of modern means of fast transit are under obligation to use it with due care for the safety of others. Now that concreted highways are becoming the vogue, there is a temptation to treat them as speed-tracks, to the public peril It is a practice not to be countenanced. The police and others should be vigilant to nip it in the bud. The action of the Blenheim magistrate is worthy of general emulation.