DEFECTIVE BRAKES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 819, 13 November 1929, Page 11

DEFECTIVE BRAKES

SERVICE DRIVER FINED SEQUEL TO ACCIDENT WAIHI, Tuesday. Pleas oi' nut guilty were made by Mr. K. Carden, of Paeroa, in the Wailii Magistrate’s Court today, when ho alJpeared on behalf of Oliver James Horrenson, a service car driver employed by the Waihi-Paeroa Transport Company, who was charged with dangerous driving and with having driven a service-car of which the brakes were not in good working order. Sergeant JJ. Li. Calwell prosecuted. Constable A. It. Rimmer. who was one of the six passengers in the car when it partially went over a bank into the Piako River, near the jetty on the Rewarewa Road near Ngatea on October 4. stated that the driver had turned down the road to pick up another fare. lie had attempted to turn on the narrow road, on each side of which were deep ditches, but was unable to do so. He therefore went further down the road toward the jetty, where there appeared to be more room, and tried again to make a turn. After some backing Sorrenson accclcrated and the car went about five feet over the river-bank, the lront buffer striking a mudbunk on the edge of | the river. Fortunately the passengers : kept their heads, and they were able ito get out by one of the back doors, j A'obody was injured. i About ir> minutes after the mishap j witness told the driver that he suspected that the brakes were not in good order, and iSorrenson admitted that he know such to be the case when lie left Waihi that morning. In a statement made at the Waihi police station a week later, which he did not sign, defendant had admitted that he knew the brakes were not in order when he left, but had said he thought they were sufficiently reliable. Harold Alexander Brown, commercial traveller, Auckland, corroborated the evidence of the constable with regard to the actual accident, and said it appeared t«* him that the driver had lost liis head. Witness, who was sitting on it back seat, could not say whether or not the brakes were applied. ’ Defendant claimed that the brakes were effective and that the mishap was j due to the narrow space in which he ■ had to turn. He had not made the ■ statements with regard to the brakes that appeared in the unsigned report. i and did not see why the report should . lie produced as evidence when he liad : not signed it. Two motor mechanics, ‘Robert Leo McClinehy. an employee of the Trans- ! port Company at Paeroa, and Malcolm : Stewart McDonald, of the Hauraki Mains garage, who removed the service I car. said that they had tried the j brakes and found them to be working satisfactorily. : The magistrate said ii was clear that the passengers: in the car had ; escaped a serious accident, and he preferred to accept the evidence of the , - • . In negotiating tur the vehicle had apparently run to a ; stage at which the brakes should have | been applied, but the car had not been I stopped. He would dismiss the | charge of dangerous driving, but coni sidered that the- accident had been the result of defective l >rak es, ai i fendant would be convicted on the ' second charge. A fine of £5 and costs was imposed.