'The reckless and callous section of motorists': Drink and driving in New Zealand before 1939

Abstract

Although breath and blood alcohol tests and limits for drivers were instituted in 1969 and anti-drink driving campaigns were common from the 1970s, concern at the volatile relationship between motor vehicles and alcohol has a much longer history. This paper traces the earliest awareness of the problem and the limited police and judicial response before 1914; growing public debate by the early 1920s; explicit legislation and ‘drastic’ penalties from the mid-1920s; and the more consistent portrayal of the ‘motoring menace’ amid the dramatic increase in motor vehicle ownership by the 1930s. While these responses tended to parallel aspects of those in Britain and other parts of the world, they must also be set against New Zealand’s shifting alcohol culture, and especially the impact of six o’clock closing from 1917.