MOTOR STRIKES CHILD.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 5009, 4 August 1926, Page 2

MOTOR STRIKES CHILD.

MISHAP NEAR WAITAKARURU.

FOOLISH PRANKS OF CHILDREN.

A five-year-old boy, son of Mr RLeslie, of Waitakaruru, was knocked over by a motor service, car on the Pipiroa-Waitakaruru road yesterday morning. It is understood that his injuries are slight.

Eye-witnesses state, that the driver sounded his horn several times, and that when the car was only a few yards away the child ran on to the middle df the road. The car was swerved quickly and nearly went into the roadside drain, but the child was hit a glancing blow with the back mudguard.

The driver of the car, when interviewed, stated that the school children using the Pipiroa-Waitakaruru road were a constant saufice oif anxiety to the drivers of motors, as they were in the habit of playing “last across the rojad” in front of motor vehicles, and'of standing with outstretched arms in an effort to touch the sides, of passing vehicles. Sometimes there would be a child on ea;ch side of the road, and they would sjtand as close, together as they dated and the cars had to pass between them. They took nA notice of the sounding Of horns or of being spoken to by drivers. As this statement wasi made by the driver of the service car which had hit the child the drivers' of othe.r cars frequenting the road were questioned, and each one spoken to confirmed the allegation. “I would not be surprised to he.ar any day that ,a child had been killed on that 'road,” observed one driver, after asking that the parents, be “well told off” in the newspaper.

Mr Cameron, foreman of wohksl for the Plains County Council, who was in the service car when the driver was spoken to on the matter, added that the drivers of the County Council’s ■metal trucks had complained to him b'f the actions of school children on the Waitakaruru road.