"MOTOR HOGS.”

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15836, 5 June 1919, Page 4

"MOTOR HOGS.”

Parliament will have to do something to suppress the "motor hog.” When an accident occurs it frequently happens that tho police are censured for not being watchful, or tho local authority is blamed for making its by-laws too easy. But neither police nor local body can deal with the nuisance as effectively as they ought, because Parliament has put limits to their powers. Those limits should be extended. But Parliament is unduly considerate to the motorist, for reasons which Parliament (and a few others) know, and the nuisance continues. It is j) rob ably well within the mark to say that news of only about one accident in ten reaches the public ear, the other nine being carefully kept quiet. Of late, as our readers will have noticed, there has been quite a large crop of motor accidents, some of them fatal, all over the Dominion. Only on Saturday last, a young girl was knocket over in Wanganui, a few days previously another serious accident occurred at St. John’s crossing, and a cyclist was left stunned and bleeding on the I'ordcll road, and from time to time this district keeps producing its quota towards the crop. It would not be a bad idea, if, instead of requiring the victim of an accident to prove his case. Parliament threw on the "motor hog” the onus of providing that he was not <o blame. Pending Parliamentary action, we hope the Bench will “rub it in” to all of these gentry who come before it, and make the practice of reckless speeding something too expensive to be indulged in. Such a course would safeguard the public at least to some extent, and would be in the interests of, and be welcomed by decent motorists who* we are glad to think, are in the majority.