PETROL SLACKNESS ALLEGED

Southland Times, Issue 24759, 2 June 1942, Page 5

PETROL SLACKNESS ALLEGED

1067 MILES IN RENTAL CAR (Special) WELLINGTON, June 1. “How do these, people manage to get this benzine? There must be a certain amount of slackness somewhere. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry who wants to go for a trip around the country can go and get a licence, while the private motorist is penalized and cut down to practically nothing.” This comment was made by Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in Wellington, when Frederick Arthur Desmond Courtenay and Frederick Hawken pleaded guilty to charges of aiding and abetting an offence under the Rental Vehicles Regulations.

Senior-Sergeant Paine said Courtenay and Hawken wanted to make a business trip to Wanganui and Hawera. On their behalf a man named Cornish hired a rental car, as neither of them had a driving licence. Cornish then disappeared, and the two defendants made their trips with petrol issued by special licence to Cornish, travelling 1067 miles and using 33j gallons of benzine. “Why are car rental people allowed to carry on at all these days?” asked the Magistrate. “It only opens the way for abuses of the petrol regulations.’’ The Magistrate said it seemed to him that the oil fuel controller was partly to blame for issuing the licences at all. The defendants were using the petrol for what the oil fuel controller considered a legitimate purpose. In imposing a fine upon Courtenay and Hawken of £5 each on one charge, and convicting and discharging them on the others, the Magistrate said that, if the oil fuel controller allowed petrol to be wasted like that, he would not impose any heavier fine.