A MOTOR HEARSE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22294, 21 June 1934, Page 8

A MOTOR HEARSE

HEAVY TRAFFIC REGULATIONS QUESTION OF CATEGORY (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, June 20. The question whether in the meaning of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1924, a dead body can be considered to be a person was argued in the Police Court to-dny before.Mr W. 11. M'Kean, S.M. The point ..was raised when a prosecution was laid by. the Auckland City Council against Michael M'Carthy, an undertaker of Avondale, who was charged with using an unlicensed heavy traffic vehicle. It was admitted that the vehicle in question, a hearse, weighed over the two tons, the weight specified to bring a vehicle in the heavy traffic category. Counsel for the defence, Mr Clarke, claimed that the vehicle was exempt from special licence in that it was a private motor car. A motor car was defined in the Act as a vehicle designed solely, or principally, for the carriage of persons pot exceeding nine. Actually the hearse, counsel maintained, was designed for the carriage of three persons, two of whom, the driver and the undertaker, were living and O' third was dead. It was a private car in that it did not ply for hire. For (jfhe council, Mr Bland maintained that a hearse had no features which would remove it from the category of an ordinary heavy traffic vehicle. A coffin and a corpse could not be considered ns a passenger. A driver was necessary as on all vehicles and the undertaker was carried merely for the sake of convenience.

Mr M'Kean said that while in taxing legislation the wording had to be very strictly ‘construed, he nevertheless felt that the word “ persons ” was undoubtedly intended to mean living persons and that n hearse.was realljf a vehicle primarily intended for the carriage of a dead body. However, he would reserve his decision.