This Day in History: 1933-01-04

Motor Vehicle Commissioner Harold G. Hoffman announced a campaign against false names and addresses given for drivers licenses and registrations.  He estimated that at least 5,000 of these documents have fictitious identifications on them.  Outside of the fact that it is against the law to give false information, he said, the major difficulty lay in cases of hit and run accidents.  When registrations and licenses prove to be false investigating officers and hating to go on in trying to apprehend the perpetrators.  He said that every resource in his department would be employees of his Department to verify names and addresses, but that he was hampered by a short-age of personnel.  He had found that many of the violators in the past had been associated with the liquor trade and hoped that the recent real of the Hobart Act would remove the need for deceiving the authorities.  He pointed out that this was the only part of the motor vehicle law under which violators could be charged at any time during the year.  In all other cases charges had to be brought within thirty days.  The giving of false names and addresses was subject to a fine of between $200 and $500 and a year in jail.

(Bristow)