SMALL BOY’S DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1938, Page 6

SMALL BOY’S DEATH

UNSUITABLE VEHICLE USED AS SCHOOL BUS CORONER SPEAKS IN STRONG TERMS. DRIVER HELD BLAMELESS. (Ry Telegraph—Press Association.) ' BLENHEIM, This Day. Returning the verdict, at an inquest today that John William Barr, aged seven, died as a result of head injuries received in a fall from a moving school bus near Seddon, on November 21, the District Coroner, Mr E. J. Hill, added a rider condemning the vehicle in question as unsuitable for the purpose of the conveyance of young children. The coroner added that he could not see that the driver of the bus was blameworthy. It was in the method of transport of children that there was much need.for improvement. He undertook to forward a recommendation to the Transport Department that vehicles of< such a type should not be licensed for the purpose for which this bus was used. The evidence disclosed that the bus was a light delivery van, with a canvas hood, but open at the back, except for a 17> inch tailboard. Alexander Carlyle Reilly, the driver, said the bus was occupied by ten children between the ages of five and thirteen. There was no adult with them and he was seated in the cab, entirely separated from the children, who could communicate with him only by tapping on the cab window, which was a fixture. If he needed to communicate with them he had to stop and get out. On the occasion of the accident, he inadvertently drove past deceased’s gate. On pulling up forty yards beyond, he went to tell the children to sit still while he backed to the gate, but found that Barr had jumped out. The vehicle was licensed by the Transport Department on October 6. A schoolgirl aged twelve gave evidence that when the bus did not stop at Barr’s gate, he threw something out, and then put his foot on the tailboard and jumped out. Nobody suggested that he should do it. He was not pushed, and the bus was travelling at its ordinary speed. The coroner added a rider to his verdict drawing the attention of the responsible Department to the fact that in his opinion the vehicle involved, although licensed, was quite unsuited for the conveyance of young children and that the absence of control by the driver and the open back, guarded only by a low tailboard, should disqualify such a vehicle from receiving a certificate of fitness for the purpose for which it was, used submitted that the matter was one meriting immediate attention by a revision of the system of regulation, which permitted such vehicles to be employed, not only in Seddon. but in other districts in New Zealand.