Courts of Summary Jurisdiction
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836502900101 |
| Published date | 01 January 1965 |
| Date | 01 January 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Journal
of
Criminal Law
VOL.
XXIX. No. I
Courts of Summary Jurisdiction
AQUESTION OF FITNESS TO DRIVE
THE RE was an interesting conflict of medical opinion at
SouthWestern Magistrates' Courtrecentlywhenthe Magis-
trateheardan appeal
under
s. 103 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960,
against a refusal by
the
London County Council, as licensing
authority, to grant adriving licence which had been applied for
in March, 1964,
under
s. 100 of the Act.
In
evidence the appellant said
that
he was now 34 and had
suffered from dizzy spells since he was seven years old.
He
had
volunteered for
the
Army at 18, however, and
had
been
graded A.
I.
His first significant attack of giddiness had
occurred in 1949 when waiting at a bus stop. He had felt the
attack coming on and
had
remained conscious for about two
minutes before collapsing.
He
had suffered asimilar attack
the
next year
and
again in 1954 when he was diagnosed as
suffering from epilepsy.
He
thereupon reported himself to the
licensing authority
and
handed in his driving licence.
In
the
same year he began to take phenobarbitone and continued to
do so until 1957 when an application for
the
restoration of his
driving licence was refused.
He
then
stopped taking pheno-
barbitone,
but
six months later in 1958 he suffered another
attack. Since
that
time he had taken a half grain of pheno-
barbitone twice a day regularly and had had no further attacks.
The
main supporting evidence for
the
appellant was given
by a doctor who was, and had been for many years,
the
con-
sultant neurologist at a large hospital and was concerned with a
large proportion of the epileptic patients in two counties. He
had also, for the last seven or eight years, been advising
the
two
county councils on applications such as
the
present.
The
doctor stated
that
in his opinion if a patient went two years
without an epileptic attack he was safe to drive.
It
was a
mistake to complicate this question by
the
question of medica-
I
t-cr..
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