SIDE CAR INCIDENT

Hokitika Guardian, 17 August 1929, Page 6

SIDE CAR INCIDENT

ENGAGED IN MOTOR CYCLING

AUCKLAND, Aug. 15

Mr Justice Ostler gave judgment for defendants in a claim for £SOO against the Commercial Union Insurance Company. ' ■The claim’ was brought by the widow of Stanley Horace Baxter, who died in January, 1t27, from injuries sus-tained-in a motor-cycle accident, when lie ..was a passenger in the side-car.

The defence raised'was that the insured man was, at the time of the accident, engaged in. motor-cycling. His Honour said that counsel for plaintiff had admitted that if a girl rode pillion-wise she was engaged in motor-cycling. Although it was true that the attachment of a side-car made the motor-cycle more stable, the Judge considered that, in ordinary popular language, the occupant of the sideear was engaged in motor-cycling equally with the rider of the cycle. It was rather remarkable that the point in the case' did not seem to have come up for decision either in New Zealand, England or Australia.' “For the reasons stated,” concluded his Honor,- “I have come, very reluctantly, to the conclusion that plaintiff cannot succeed, and there must ho judgment for the defendant company with costs according to scale.” A provision : iri the policy excluded •injury while motor-cycling.