ROAD FATALITIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1939, Page 6

ROAD FATALITIES

ACCIDENT ON THE TAUPO , ROAD CAR FALLS THREE HUNDRED FEET. TWO MEN KILLED AND ONE INJURED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NAPIER, January 2. Two men were killed practically outright and one was injured and is in hospital as the result of a motor accident yesterday on the Napier-Taupo road. The victims are:— KILLED: William Kenneth Weir, aged 30, single, Montreal Street, Christchurch. Kenneth Samuel Mack, aged under 30, 199 Tinakori Road, Wellington. INJURED. Cedric Roland Hogan. 99 Main South Road. Upper Riccarton, Christchurch. In Napier hospital: condition not serious. The three men, who were all meat inspectors employed by the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Company at Moerewa, were travelling from Napier to Taupo, and the accident happened at 6.45 p.m. yesterday while they were descending Turangikumu hill. The car was being driven by Mr Weir, and just after they passed, on an easy bend, a car travelling’ in the opposite direction the car rolled in loose gravel near the edge of the road, slipped sideways and toppled over. It turned three, somersaults before landing on the road 250 feet below and then rolled a further 50 feet before coming to rest a complete wreck.

When the car first somersaulted Mr Hogan was hurled through the roof and to this he owes his life. Messrs Weir and Mack were thrown out when the car struck the road and received fatal injuries. Mr Weir was killed instantly and Mr Mack died before the arrival of a doctor. News of the accident was received from Tarawera by Constable D. Walden, Bay View, who, with Dr W. D. Fitzgerald and Constable R. J. Sutherland, Port Ahuriri, accompanied the Napier ambulance to the scene of the accident. The car was owned by Mr Hogan, who had driven it from Napier to the summit of Turangikumu, where the party had a roadside meal. When the journey was resumed Mr Weir took a turn at the driver’s seat.

YOUTH LOSES LIFE COMPANION SERIOUSLY INJURED. CAR FAILS TO NEGOTIATE BEND. WAIPUKURAU, January 2. When a motor-car ran off the road a mile south of Wanstead on the Wai-pukurau-Porangahau main highway yesterday morning, one youth was killed and another seriously injured. The victims were:—

KILLED. Piri Cyril Wakefield, aged 17, Porangahau, . who was unconscious when found and died before medical aid was obtained. INJURED. W. Ropiha, aged 19, Porangahau, who was driving the car, and who is in Waipukurau Hospital with injuries to his back. The car, which was proceeding toward Waipukurau from Porangahau, failed to negotiate a bend in the road and plunged over a bank. After crashing through a fence it turned over. A passing motorist, Mr N. P. Wilder. Wanstead, arrived a few minutes after the accident and found Ropiha on the road injured. He went down the bank and found Wakefield lying unconscious in a paddock. Mr Wilder went back to the Wanstead Post Office and telephoned for an ambulance, but Wakefield was dead when he returned. Ropiha is stated to be making satisfactory progress. An inquest was opened today before the acting-corner, Mr A. C. Holms, J.P.. and a jury. After evidence of identification the hearing was adjourned sine die.

• PEDESTRIAN KILLED. RUN DOWN BY OVERTAKING CAR. BLENHEIM, January 2. The New Year began badly in Marlborough when a fatal accident occurred within two hours of midnight on Saturday night. An elderly pedestrian was killed by an overtaking motor-car on the highway at Spring Creek. It was the first serious road accident of the holidays in this dictrict. The victim was James Reed, aged 56, single, labourer, formerly a resident of. Nelson. The car was driven by Alick 1 Morgan, aged 23, Marshlands, who wa; returned from the New Year's Eve carnival in Blenheim, accompanied by his sister and another young man. Mr Reed, who was wearing a dark suit, was walking on the bitumen surfacing within a few chains of his whare when stuck by the left-hand bumper of the car, receiving a fracture skull which was instantly fatal.