FINES INADEQUATE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26776, 20 May 1948, Page 7

FINES INADEQUATE

PUNISHMENT FOR CARELESS

DRIVING

INSPECTOR’S CONTENTION P.A, HASTINGS, May 19. The need for some form of punishment other than fines in traffic cases, particularly those involving motor accidents due to careless driving, is advocated by Chief Traffic Inspector H. A. Green in his annual report to the Hastings Borough Council. He recommends that provision should be made by which a careless person involved in an accident should be made to pay all or a portion of the cost sufficient to leave an impression that care is necessary while using roads. “If the powers that be are really desirous of keeping down the accident rate, they will have to face up to the fact that punishment ‘that will inconvenience an offender is necessary,” lie says. He adds that he has made personal inquiry to find if there was any deeper reason for lack of fear of an accident or even punishment by fines for not abiding by the rules of the road. His questioning of a number of people prosecuted for some traffic breach had revealed in many instances that they had not been unduly inconvenienced by fines “but do not like the publicity because their friends then know that they have been caught.” The move to have regulations brought down making it an offence for a vehicle to be driven past a stationary school bus is commented upon by Mr Green. He contends that the motorist to-day has enough obligations thrust upon him and regulations to observe, and he urges instead that there should be a rule that children alighting from a bus must stand on the roadside until the bus has moved off and then proceed to cross the road if it is clear.