MOTOR REGISTRATION.

NZ Truth, Issue 282, 19 November 1910, Page 7

MOTOR REGISTRATION.

Local Body's Laxity.

« The Motor Regulation Act oi .1908 or may not be a very lucid -mpasure, but, according to Mr Ban- ; Uon, the owners of Dunedin 1 garages Jtlcih't quite understand how they '-.stand under it. The matter was brought. to a head by an occurrence on. October 14. On that date Dr. Xpettitt e;ot married, and he hired -three motor cars from Cooke, HowliV son.-.and Co., to take the wedding party to. .a church and afterwards to a photographer's— one might as well .not be married at all as not »c 'photographed. As the ,cars passed, up George-street they struck Sergeant 'Henry, who appears to have had both eyes open, as he notices that all the Ciars bore the same number— l.2s. The jsfergeant made inquiries while the wedding group were inside being snapped, and found that none of the , cars were registered. Therefore, he laid informations against the threa drivers', who were charged before Mag T strat«' Bartholomew on Novem.ber 11 with having driven unregistered Ci*sS. , The]' evidence for the .. prosecution showed that m November, 1907, the firm registered a Stuart car, and 'J7.erje given a "distinguishing numv,Jj£r'Vfor it, ■ the qpst of the registration being £1, for which the firm werp entitled to use the number on any car m their garage whioh was being given a trial run on the *treet«j,v. A tew months afterwards t .wie. car- was sold to Dr. Batchelor, /and was registered under another number; and the fee for the "distin-guishing-number," which is payable yearly, hadn't been paid since. The

position made out toy the prosecution, therefore, was that the three cars were used for hire without being registered—the fee being ten shillings for the lifetime of the car.

The defence was that the Act wasn't clear, that all the motor firms m the town used 1 their "distinguishing nuniber," as Cooke, Howlinson and Co. had done, and that 'if the registration of the "distinguishing number" had to be renewed the City Council, the registering authority, should have given notice to the firm. Sub-Inspector Phair pointed out the confusion liable to occur if three cars bore the same number and an accident happened to one of them. The S.M. said the Act was quite plain to Mm— each Of the cars should have been registered. The < annual fee of £1 was merely for cars for trial purposes. He didn't quite understand why the law hadn't been enforced. It wasn't the; duty of the registering authority^ to run after the owners of cars, bburint r in view of the revenue derivable, .the' City Council should "batfe been more alert.

Pines of ten' shillings and costs were imposed m each of the three cases. Mr, Hani on endeavored to get the fine mitigated by pointing out that the firm, had acted m good faith, and that the. firm, and not the -drivers would' have to. pay the fines ;'btfi the S.M. said he would fix the fine on a basis of the amount of revenue which the firm' had failed to pay— for two years they had hired out cars which weren't registered m any way-