What does driving a car mean ? There would seem
to be little question about that, but in fact there is a good deal, quite enough to carry the problem into the High Court of Justice, where a ruling was given on it last Friday. A Sheffield man, a Mr. Bool, had been charged before the local justices with driving a motor-van while dis- qualified from holding a licence to drive. The facts, which were undisputed, were that one evening when the van was standing out- side Mr. Bool's premises,. which are on a slight hill, he started it with a push and then jumped on board and let the van run on to his garage a hundred yards further down the hill. There was no petrol in the tank and the engine was not running. The magistrates held that to drive a mechanically propelled engine meant propelling it by its engine, and on the facts dismissed the case. The police appealed, and last week the Lord Chief Justice decided that a man who steers a moving motor-vehicle and controls it by applying the brakes is driving it. Mr. Justice Birkett and Mr. Justice Sellers concurred. So the Sheffield justices must now convict for a technical offence. But the consequences for Mr. Bool will not be grave. * • *
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