§ 43. Mrs. COPELANDasked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that, in some parts of the country, magistrates are endorsing the licences of motorists convicted of exceeding the 30-miles-perhour speed limit even when it is their first offence in many years of driving, whereas in other places licences are not endorsed in such circumstances; and whether, as endorsement of licence is too severe a penalty for a driver whose livelihood may depend on his clean licence and whose first offence it is, he will circularise all magistrates recommending a uniform penalty for first offenders without endorsing the licence unless special circumstances make the offence a serious one?
§ Sir J. GILMOURUnder Sub-section (1) of Section 5 of the Road Traffic Act, 1934, the court before which a person convicted of exceeding a speed limit is 1373 required to order the offender's licence to be endorsed, in the absence of any special reason to the contrary. The fact that he has not previously been convicted of a similar offence must be true at some time of every offender, and I could not suggest to magistrates that this could properly be regarded as in itself constituting a special reason for not ordering endorsement of the licence.
§ Mrs. COPELANDWill the Minister bear in mind, that endorsement of licence is very hard in the case of drivers convicted of a first offence, and that it is very difficult to drive a car with one eye on the speedometer and the other on the road?