NEGLIGENT MOTORIST FINED £lOO.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3637, 12 May 1927, Page 1

NEGLIGENT MOTORIST FINED £IOO.

LICENSE CANCELLED FOR FOUR YEARS.

CONCLUSION OF DRUMMOND CASE.

Palmerston North, May 10

Hearing was commenced in the Supreme Court this morning of a case in which John Drummond, an elderly retired ironmonger, was charged with negligently driving a motor-car on the Woodville-Pahia-tua road on November 13, 1920, thereby causing the death of Albert George Vinton. Accused pleaded not guilty. He was represented by Mr. H. K. Cooper, with whom was associated Mr. IV. P. Donnington, of Dannevirke.

This was a retrial, the jury at the former session of the Court having failed to arrive at an agreement.

In outlining the ease for the prosecution, Mr. P. H. Cooke said that he did not think there was any dispute as to the .facts. On the day mentioned in the charge, accused was driving along the W'oodvillePahiatha road at about 1 p.m. Accused had in the car with him three friends. The vehicle overtook a boy who was walking on the road in the absence of a footpath. The ear struck the boy, who fell on the vehicle and was carried some distance. He was a .Flock House boy who had taken employment with a farmer. He was seiously injured, and did not regain consciousness, being removed to the.Pahiatua Hospital, where he died next morning. For the defence, Mr. Cooper said that although it might have been possible to avert the tragedy, the fact that the accident occurred was not proof of negligence. The reason why accused did not see deceased before he did was because deceased had suddenly come out on to the road. Counsel regretted that there was not in existence a rule compelling pedestrians to keep to the right side when walking on roads, particularly at night. By this means he contended accidents could be avoided.

The jury returned after an-hour’s retirement with a verdict of guilty, adding as a rider that the rule of the road for pedestrians should be to k6ep to the right.

His Honour remarked that he entirely concurred with the verdict of tiie jury, and with the rider. “Was there the slightest suggestion as there is in so many of these cases, of reckless joy-riding or of drinking,* then, in spite of your years and honourable position, I would deem it my duty to send you to prison,” said the Judge, addressing the prisoner, “but there is not. You were over-confident of your own powers as a driver and you were negligent. You have lived an honourable life as a citizen, and, although the case before the Court is a grave offence, 1 cannot consider inflicting any punishment on you which would bear hardly on your state of health.”

His Honour said he did not think prisoner had the temperament to be a motor driver. In the tragedy that had occurred this might have been contributory to the result and he did not think it would be wise for prisoner to again control a car on the highways. He imposed a tine of £IOO, and directed also that prisoner pay £SO towards the expenses of the two trials; that his present driving license be cancelled, and that he be disabled from obtaining a further license for four years.