"MOTOR-CAR ACCIDENTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 138, 10 June 1905, Page 9

"MOTOR-CAR ACCIDENTS.

T!ie motor-car has had a goo.! deal to answer for of late, and public opinion is rising high against tlie reckless, irresponsible "scorcher" on our country roads. He wa~ bad enough as a cyclist, before the days of automobile?.; but now that he has taken to whirling along in a motor-car lie becomes ari insufferable nuisance. The past week or two has witnessed a:i extraordinary epidemic of motor awidents —fatal and otherwise—ou the road, especially during the Easter holidays. • They all be attributed to reckless or incompetent driving, but when accidents become so frequent it is high lime an example was made of one or two glaring offenders, to teach the motorists a little more consideration for the safety and the feelings of other people. The tragedy which has excited most attention occurred the other day at Markyate. in Hertfordshire. A little five-vear-olrl hoy who was playing '»v the roadside saw his nurse coming out of a prate just across the road. He started to run across to join her. and just then a motor-car dashed v.p and kiiled tiie child. Instead of pulling up after the accident the car went straight ahead, and quickly vanished from view. The driver of the «-ar gave up to the police on Saturday after" oon. and proved to be in the employ of ~S\t Hildebrand Harmsworth. and it va.~ Mr HarmsworthV car that ran over and killed the little boy! The occupants of the ear. in addition to the driver, were two residents in the Wellington Division of Shropshire, tor which Mr Harmsworth is the Unionist Parliamentary candidate. The driver will be tried on a charge of manslaughter, and the Automobile Club will also hold a private inquiry into the circumstances attending the death of tiic vietini. Another case which has aroused strong comment cecured on the Holy-head-road, near Wolverbampton. One of the cars selected for the GordonBennett trials collidtS with a carriers cart, killing the horse and serionslv injuring a woman and two men. The motorist coolly remarked: "I was only going at sixty miles an hour. This car has cost £2000 to build, and has run in the Gordon-Bennett trials."' He was fined £50. and his license was endorsed and suspended for two years. An Edinburgh engineer has been committed for trial on a chaTge of manslaughter arising out of a collision between M~ motor- ! car and a baby's perambulator. The infant escaped uninjured, but its nnrse wa* dashed to the ground, and received fatal injuries. A farmer named Mugjreridge has died as the result of inj juries inflicted in a collision which took I place between his can and a motor-car i near ArundeJ. and a day or two ago a woman at Ftreatham lost her life in. saving her daughter from being run over by a ißotor-cyclp. Ot minor accidents by motors there have been many more. I *