S.M.'s Comments On Driving Without Care

Chronicle (Levin), 10 December 1949, Page 2

S.M.'s Comments On Driving Without Care

If an alleged act was a momentary one it might not be driving without due care and attention. That classification usually resulted from continuous motions leading up to the event. On the other hand, however, a second's thoughtlessness might render a driver hable under a civil action. This opihion was expressed- by Mr. A. A. McLachlan, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court, Otaki, yesterday when dealing yuth a Charge of driving without due care and attention preferred against Thomas Perkins. He was seeking to determine, •fciefore going into the case in detail, whether it was one which sfiould rightly. be handled -by the court or whether it was a matter which would be better determined in a civil abtion. Driving without due care and attention was a charge which was always a difficult one to prove, he added. A specific offence such as failing to give way or speeding could be defined as driving without due care and attention. If, for instance, a driver was travelling at 30 m.p.h. and his windscren wiper cut out and that driver, without reducing speed, made efforts to use his hand to adjust it that might also be termed driving without duq care and attention. After hearing the evidence of one witness, Mr. McLachlan dismissed the . charge. In evidence, John Henry Winter, builder and market gardener, of Otaki, stated that on October 21 he had been 'driving 'his vehicle | from Otaki towards the Railway along Mill Road. As he neared the school he slowed down, knowing that children would be crossing the street, Nearing the bowser station he saw a yellOw car with someone leaning against it. Further on there was a small car with someone sitting in it. Both cars appeared to be stationary. When he was -130 feet away from; the small car his vision of it was obscured. At that stage he was. travelling at 15 miles an hour. About 10 to 12 feet away the small car appeared to "shoot straight out" and witness' car struck it Witness added that he was travelling on his correct side of. the road on the edge of the bitumen. His cars had struck that of defendant's right in the centre.Asked by the magistrate if he' had noticed whether "the , small car's indicator was out of not,witness said he could not say de--finitely. 1 Wa.s there a witness to say that. the indicator of the small car was in or out? the magistrate asked. • For defendant, Mr. B. H. Rhodes said that an independent witness would say that the indicator was' out. Mr. McLachlan: Then where is the offence? Dismissing the charge against defendant, Mr. McLachlan said that the witness had not been able! to say whether he had noticed the other car's indicator was in' or out, and in that eircumstance: he could not have kept a good! look out himself.