DRIVER CAUDLE.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your correspondent last week, "H. W. H.," does not seem to have grasped the point of my former letter to you. I never suggested that liability to be tried for manslaughter would seriously affect the safety of the travelling public. I expressed the opinion that the verdict and sentence on Driver Caudle were inevitable and just, whatever clemency, justifi- able or not, might be exercised afterwards. Does "H. W. H." really deny that there is no parallel between drivers of publio road vehicles and public rail vehicles P With your leave I will repeat the illustration I gave in my former letter.
" Supposing the driver of a motor omnibus were to drive past the uplifted arm of a constable, instead of past a signal at danger, and as a result crash into another motor omnibus and kill and injure some passengers, would a jury or judge let him off any more lightly, or as lightly, as in the Aisgill case ?"
And I went on to give a parallel case at Ipswich where the driver of a motor lorry, who had caused death and injury, received the same sentence as Caudle. " R W. H." also says that the duties of a motor omnibus driver and of a locomotive driver are essentially different. But surely he knows that in both cases a schedule time is laid down, and
that both men are responsible for obeying orders and avoiding danger. As a matter of fact, I can tell him that the motor omnibus driver has probably a far harder task, and undergoes more strain, physical and mental, than the
driver of the average locomotive. Like many others, I am glad that Caudle was liberated, and agree with you that his prosecution in the special circumstances may have been a mistake. But I still think that the legal responsibility for carelessness on the part of a driver, resulting in death and injury, should be upheld. If, however, this theory is to be done away with, let the driver of the road vehicle be treated equally as leniently as the driver of a vehicle on rails. That is all motorists ask, and their demand is logical 62 Pall Mail, S.W.
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