High Accident Rate Over Holiday Period: Twenty-two Fatalities

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 11, 9 January 1948, Page 5

High Accident Rate Over Holiday Period: Twenty-two Fatalities

Accidents caused the. loss of 22 lives in the Dominion during the 14-day holiday period from Sunday, December 21, to midnight last Sunday. In the same fortnight a year ago, 12 accidental deaths were reported. Drowning accounted for 11 of the fatalities during the holidays this year. Of those who were drowned, five met their deaths last Friday—two half caste Maori brothers, aged nine and five, in a pool of the Rangitaiki River near Murupara, 40 miles from Rotorua; two European brothers, aged 27 and 23, near the mouth of the Marakopa River, 40 miles south of Raglan, and a New Plymouth man who got into difficulties while fishing off Paritutu Beach. There were four cases of drowning in the same fortnight a year ago. Eight persons were killed in motor accidents, two of the victims being motor cyclists, four pedestrians and two the occupants of a motor car struck by a runaway horse float at New Lynn. In the first aviation accident for some time, a man was killed in a crash at Paraparaumu on Christmas Eve. There were two shooting fatalities, one on a Hawke’s Bay farm and the other on a deer stalking expedition near Hokitika. With the exception of the lastmentioned accident and two drownings in Canterbury, all the deaths occurred in the North Island. Nine were in the Auckland province. Sixteen of the victims were men, four were children, one .was a woman and one was a youth.