TRAM FATALITY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 August 1943, Page 4

TRAM FATALITY

MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE AGAINST DRIVER TECHNICAL & OTHER EVIDENCE. SPEED IN CROSSING POINTS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. The overturning of a fully-laden tram at Kilbirnie, on the evening of June 12, as a result which an airman was fatally injured and 28 other poisons were hurt, was the basis of a charge of manslaughter brought in the Magistrate’s Court today against the motorman, Donald Norman Mac Lean, aged 33. The airman, who died shortly alter his admission to hospital, was James Edward Kerr, of the R.N.Z.A.F., aged 27. Twenty-two witnesses are listed for the Crown. The early evidence included that of ambulance men and a house surgeon and also that of a photographer who took photographs on the night of the accident and who said the weather was fine and the visibility good. The working of automatic points was explained by a tramway inspector. He said that if a motorman wished to round a corner, he moved under contact strips at low power. Conversely, if the points were already set for a turn, a motorman would coast. It was always necessary to approach and cross points at low speed, because of the points failing to act if the tram were going too fast, and because of the risk of the points changing during a crossing. From his experience, the maximum speed at which a tram could cross with safely, if the points were already set in the desired position, was eight to ten miles an hour. The witness mentioned that the defendant had come on duty late, but he was satisfied that the defendant had made a genuine mistake and he was told to take the following shift. There was definitely no evidence of his having had drink.