ARMY VEHICLES IN ACCIDENTS

Southland Times, Issue 24827, 20 August 1942, Page 4

ARMY VEHICLES IN ACCIDENTS

JUST SETTLEMENT OF CLAIMS SOUGHT

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, August 19. Further representations are to be made by the North Island Motor Union to the Attorney-General with the object of ensuring that claims brought by persons after accidents involving Army vehicles will be settled justly. The annual conference of the union today appointed a deputation to interview the Minister. Mr T. M. N. Rodgers (Manawatu) warned the union to make sure it was not being lulled into a sense of false security. He had been told on the best of authority that regulations to be introduced would have the effect only of permitting the Army to admit liability when advised to do so, and that its adviser would be the State Fire Office. The union had asked that a person injured in a collision 'with an Army vehicle should have the right to apply to an ordinary court of British justice, but the proposed regulations would not give that right. The union should ask to see a draft of the regulations, because he was afraid they would be drawn in a half-hearted, slipshod manner. They might only cover cases in which the Army was so obviously responsible that the case would never have got into court in any case. A citizen should not be deprived of the right to bring his case to court.