Motorists are being urged to carry their driving licences with them when on the road in a bid to put the brakes on traffic offenders giving false information when stopped by Police.

Senior Magistrate Will Francis said on Friday that there had been a number of cases in recent weeks where innocent people had been brought before the courts to pay fines -- only to claim that they knew nothing about the original offences.

And when victims have been able to prove that they could not have been driving at the time a ticket was issued the case has had to be thrown out -- costing the Government thousands of dollars in revenue.

"This has been happening all the time -- there are cases coming up every few days,'' Mr. Francis said.

"Anyone who is familiar with the process in Magistrates' Court, particularly involving traffic matters, knows there's a lot of giving of false names when one is stopped.

"What happens is that somebody will give a wrong name for something like speeding and then come to court and plead guilty to it and get fined.

"The person whose name has been given doesn't know anything about it of course -- that is until the fine is unpaid and a warrant is issued for their arrest.

"Tragically, you then have a situation where somebody can be arrested on a Friday night for non-payment and they will spend the weekend in custody. Then, when they appear in court on the Monday morning I am satisfied and the Police are satisfied that we have got the wrong person.

"Someone can be stopped and, if they know the date of birth and address of say, Joe Brown, they can give that name. When that information is fed into a computer all the information matches and so it's assumed that the person who was stopped is Joe Brown.

"I know that a lot of people don't carry their driving licences but I also know there have been one or two attempts to get them to do so so that, if you are stopped for speeding say, the Police are sure that you are who you say you are.

"It's something I have mentioned from the bench from time to time and I have also heard traffic officers and Police Prosecutions officers say the same thing. But really it can only become law if it is passed by the Government.

There have been a number of cases recently where people have come before the court and they are charged with a traffic matter and they genuinely don't know anything about it.

"I think that sometimes, when people get stopped, they panic and that panic makes them give a false name with really tragic results.'' When contacted on Friday, Public Safety Minister Maxwell Burgess initially poured cold water on the mandatory carrying of a driver's licence at all times.

He then suggested that the owners of a vehicle should be made responsible, regardless of who was driving, an idea dismissed by Mr. Francis.

"In the case of speeding offences you don't look at the owner of the vehicle but the person who is behind the wheel,'' he said. "In parking offences, if I loan you my vehicle and it's then parked illegally and I get a ticket that makes sense because in 90 out of 100 parking cases the traffic officer will not know who's parked the vehicle illegally anyway.

"In the case of parking tickets the owner is responsible, yes, but in offences which involve moving vehicles it is the person who is driving who gets the ticket.'' When contacted a second time last night Mr. Burgess said that he had no comment to make.

"I don't know to what extent this is a problem,'' he said.

"I can't comment at the moment. You are talking about a hypothetical situation. If magistrates are saying that then that's what you must print.'' Will Francis