DUAL CONTROL OF CAR

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1926, Page 15

DUAL CONTROL OF CAR

WOMAN'S DEATH RESULTS OPEN VERDICT RETURNED. STRONG COMMENT BY CORONER. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. “I do not usually make any comments at inquests, but think I ought to comment on the practice of two people handling a car and neither knowing what the other intends doing in regard to the gear speeds and other things,” said Mr. 11. P. La wry, S.M., district coroner, in recording his verdict at the inquest this morning on Mrs. Matilda Featherstone, who was killed at Sumner on Sunday, October 24. The coroner said that he would return an open verdict, viz., that deceased died at Sumner on October 24, the cause of her death being a fractured skull sustained through being crushed against a monument by a bar driven jointly by Henry Neale and William John Lugg.

In a further comment ‘.he coroner said that the joint control of the car had considerably contributed to the accident in the present case. It was beyond doubt that when Lugg put the engine into gear, he must have put it into top gear instead of into low. The speed which the car attained proved this. “I cannot comment too strongly on the dangerous practice adopted on this occasion,” concluded the coroner. On October 24 last Mrs. Matilda Featherstone, of Kaiapoi, met her death at Sumner through being crushed by a motor-car against a seat on the esplanade on which she and her daughter, Mrs. Martin, were sitting.