A SENSIBLE DECISION.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18382, 28 September 1929, Page 12

A SENSIBLE DECISION.

A charge of dangerous driving, in which the defendant was stated to have driven at 45 m.p.h. when his tyre burst, causing the car to overturn, was dismissed last week by Judge Whitmore Richards at Chester County Court, England. The Bench was unanimous that driving at an excessive speed, even 45 m.p.h., did not constitute dangerous driving except when there was oncoming traffic. They had to be convinced that some member of the public was in danger. In this case there was no such evidence. If magistrates were to accept mere speed as constituting dangerous driving then there would be thousands of prosecutions every week. This reasonable opinion is one that deser.es wide recognition among magistrates and police, who often seem only too ready to take the contrary viewpoint. It is, indeed, a contrast to some of the local prosecutions at 32 m.p.h. APATHY TO DANGER. “I have found tha't very few of the local bodies are carrying out the Government’s decision that the.,* must erect danger signals at railway crossings,” said the Mayor of Christchurch, the Rev. J. K. Archer, on his return there from a meeting of the executive of the Municipal Association in Wellington.