CYCLIST RUN DOWN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 October 1938, Page 6

CYCLIST RUN DOWN

RESPONSIBILITY OF MOTORIST. OBSERVATIONS BY JUDGE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Arising out of a collision between a motor-car and a cyclist on the West Coast road, the driver of the car, Robert Eric Milliken was found not guilty when he appeared before Mr Justice Northcroft in the Supreme Court today, charged that he negligently drove a motor-car thereby causing bodily injury to Albert Edward Herbert Vince. The facts were not in dispute, said his Honour. The only allegation of the Crown was that Milliken did not see the cyclist as he should have done. As Milliken said, he was not dazzled until the last moment. The jury might consider why he did not see the cycle before he was dazzled or if he was dazzled for some time, was he entitled to continue? “What is to be the position,” asked his Honour, “to cyclists, pedestrians or others—are they to be run over, injured, maimed and perhaps killed because a motorist continues to travel when die cannot see them, they being in their proper place on the road? Here is a man on a cycle properly equipped with every warning device, yet he is run into and gravely injured and may have been killed by a motorist who says merely that he could not see him.” It was the jury’s duty, his Honour added, to establish a standard of care required by motorists. The jury returned with a verdict of not guilty.