NEGLIGENT MOTORISTS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4043, 4 May 1938, Page 2

NEGLIGENT MOTORISTS

HEAVIER PENALTIES NEEDED. VIEWS OF CHIEF JUSTICE. “In regard to cases of negligent driving causing death, the position is serious and important not only here in Hamilton, but generally throughout the Dominion,” said the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, in his charge to the grand jury at the opening of the quarterly session of the Supreme Court in Hamilton yesterday*. After saying that probably all cases of this kind did not get into the courts, his Honor went on to express the opinion that there was not sufficient deterrent under the present law against negligent driving of motor vehicles. Sir Michael added: “The most effective deterrent is the cancellation of the driver’s license and the prohibition of his obtaining another for a number of years. However, the power to impose that penalty is limited and the Court has no power to protect the public in that way unless that person is charged with one of the most serious charges. The question is whether it would not be in the interests of public safety to extend the power of cancelling licenses and prohibiting a driver from obtaining a license as a result of civil actions where death or bodily injury has been proved to have resulted from negligence.” A STRIKING ILLUSTRATION. “I have already pointed out,” continued his Honor, “how few are the cases involving criminal prosecution compared with the number in which bodily injury at least occurs. I have in mind a particular case illustrating the point. A man was prosecuted for negligence causing the death of a pedestrian. After lengthy' consideration the trial jury returned a verdict of not guilty. A civil action for damages on the ground of negligence followed, and in this case the jury found without hesitation that there had been negligence and awarded substantial damages. I was not the Judge at the criminal prosecution, but I was on the bench at the civil action and I would have returned just the same verdict as the jury. “But the Court had no power to protect the public, as a result of the civil verdict, by prohibiting the driver involved from holding a license in the future. Yet I know that though defendant was a perfectly decent citizen, he was by temperament unfit to be a driver. AMENDMENT OF LAW. “Whether the law should be amended is not for me to say. There may be practical difficulties in the way. Suggestions are now being made that the law should be altered so as to provide, in every case where a person is injured, for compensation for the injured person, even where the driver is not shown to have been negligent. It. is not for me to say whether that is good or not, but I do say that if the law is amended in that direction to provide for absolute liability to compensation, irrespective of negligence, the deterrent to negligent driving will be even less effective than at present unless what 1 have referred to is provided against.”