Suspending The Drinking Driver Twice?

• Date: 01 December 1990
• Published date: 01 December 1990
• Author: AMARJIT SINGH

The Road Traffic (Amendment) Act 1990

The Road Traffic (Amendment) Act1 with its long list of amendments was passed by Parliament in late March 1990 and took effect on 2nd April 1990.2

The amendments range from empowering the Registrar of Vehicles from refusing registration of motor vehicles unless there is in force a permit issued by the Registrar authorising registration of the vehicle3 under the Government’s policy of strictly controlling and gradually reducing the growth in the car population to introducing stiffer penalties against “high risk” drivers as well as pre-trial disqualification from driving for drunk drivers in certain circumstances.

Section 47C of the amended Act vests in the Deputy Commissioner of Police discretion to immediately suspend an offending driver’s licence on being charged in court when he causes death or serious injury whilst driving under the influence of drink or drugs or for like causation when he is not covered by compulsory third party insurance. A notice of the intention of the Deputy Commissioner to suspend the driver upon being charged is required to be given by the section whereupon the driver is to surrender his driving licence forthwith.

An appeal against the decision of the Deputy Commissioner of Police lies to the Minister whose decision is to be final.

The justification for pre-trial disqualification in brief arises from the need to stop “irresponsible and dangerous drivers” from being a further potential menace on the roads and the fact that the trial process takes up to a year or more when an accused pleads not guilty and in the occasional cases where the defence ‘stalls’ or ‘plays the system’ through adjournments.

This proposed amendment of the law is thus good and perhaps overdue.

But the method employed in the amending legislation to achieve its goal could perhaps have been improved in respect of both its acceptability and effectiveness.

Pre-trial suspension of drunken drivers’ licences is not a new concept. In the United

Kingdom the practice has been prevalent since 1974 but enforced through the judicial machinery. In that year a driver was charged with driving a motor vehicle when unfit to do so through drink or drugs and of driving when his blood alcohol proportion exceeded the prescribed limit. There was no accident involved. He claimed trial. A bold Magistrate departing from the usual practice of just granting the Appellant bail pending his trial in a certain sum of money made it a...