14 DAYS’ GAOL FOR TROLLEY BUS DRIVER FOUND INTOXICATED

Wanganui Chronicle, 16 May 1950, Page 5

14 DAYS’ GAOL FOR TROLLEY BUS DRIVER FOUND INTOXICATED

CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night (PA) —“Having regard to the fact that you were in charge of a public vehicle and the warnings which have been issued from this bench in the past month, it is my duty to sentence you to 14 days’ imprisonment,” said Mr. F. F. Reid, S.M., when convicting John Stewart Tranter, aged 39, bus operator, in the Magistrate’s Court this morning on a charge of being found in a state of intoxication while in charge of a trolley bus in Cathedral Square on May Tranter pleaded not guilty. Dr. F. L. Scott said that he had examined Tranter and considered he was very drunk and not fit to be in charge of a vehicle. Tranter's speech was slurred and he was very unsteady on his feet. Similar evidence was given by a Tramway Board inspector, a constable who arrested Tranter, and a sergeant of police. Mr. B. G. Dingwall, counsel for Tranter, submitted that under the regulations under which the charge was laid, the trolley bus was removed from the category of a motor vehicle. It was in a separate class, a trackless trolley omnibus, he claimed. The defence also claimed that Tranter’s state of health had contributed to his condition, said Mr. Dingwall. Tranter would say he had had only two glasses of beer ,n a hotel, and a half bottle at home that day, but Tranter was suffering from influenza and had taken sulpha tablets. The magistrate ruled that a trolley bus came within the meaning of a motor vehicle, as defined by the Motor Vehicles Act, 1924.