ACCIDENTAL DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 1

ACCIDENTAL DEATH

PEDESTRIAN KNOCKED DOWN BY MOTOR-CYCLIST NO NEGLIGENCE “I do not :hink there was any culpable or criminal negligence,” commented the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., today, in returning a verdict of accidental death in the case of Edwin Thomas Bird, who wa: fatally injured when knocked down by a motor-cycl-ist, Alexander Roberts, on the Glenficld Road, Birkenhead, on the night of De-

cember 5. The rider of the motor-cycle said that about 11 p.m., when he was returning from a party, he saw some distance ahead a group of people walking along the road. He swerved to the right to pass them, aDd the next thing he remembered was Hiding himself on the ground. He said that the headlamp on his machine was alight and in good order. In swerving he believed he had ample room to pass the pedestrians. Emma Mabel Bird, deceased’s wife, who was walking along the road with another woman and her husband, said that her husband was wheeling his bicycle on his outer side near the centre of the road. On hearing the motor-cycle approaching about 200 or 300 yards away, she urged the others to move over to the left and they did so. She said that her husband was then wheeling his machine on the loose shingle on the side of the road. Her husband was knocked over, but she did not know if the motor-cyclist hit him or his bicycle. She did not think the motor-cyclist was travelling a?; an excessive speed or that this was the cause of the accident. Her husband’s cycle had no light or reflector on it.

Dorothy F. M. Douse, who was one of the three pedestrians, said that Mr. Bird was wheeling his bicycle on the traffic track through the shingle. In her opinion the collision was a pure accident, the motor-cyclist apparently not seeing them in time. Apart from this Mr. Bird had been wheeling his machine on the outside.

The opinion of Robt. G. L. Baker, who was on the scene shortly after the crash, corroborated this view. Medical evidence showed that death was due to a fractured skull. A verdict of accidental death from a fractured skull, through being accidentally knocked down by a motorcyclist, was returned.