A DANGER SPOT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 24, 29 January 1926, Page 3

A DANGER SPOT.

KANGIOTU BRIDGE TRAGEDY. COROXIAL INQUIRY. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) PALMERSTON XORTH. tbis day. The adjourned inquiry into the circumstance? surrounding the fatality at Ranjariotu Road bridge on the night of August 16 la?t. whereby C. H. Withers and her two -?ons lost their lives, fhroush the car in which they were travelling crashing through a j picket fence and plungling down tho ! steep 'bank into the Oroua River. wa~ I resumed ai the Courthouse this mornjing. ; The bodies of the two boys. Leonard j Peria. aged live, and Jack Herbert, aged ! twelve, were found after the accident, but the body o: Withers was not discovered. Charles Herbert Wither? gave evidence that on the night of t.he fatality he was returning to by car, accompanied liy his wife and children. Approaching the Rangiotu 'bridge, the car was travelling at about fifteen miles an hour. The headlight* picked up the railway bridge about half a chain from the road bridge. Continuing on in the j belief that the first-named etxucture was the road bridge, he suddenly perceived the picket fence in front of the ear. He immediately applied the brakes, but. was too Dear the fence to stop the car, and the fence failing to arrest its course, the vehicle plunged over into the river. His wife and boys were in the back seat. ■ He made endeavours to locate them without success. The next thing he remembered was freeing himself and being <pul!ed out of the river. Another witness related having a somewhat similar experience to that of Mr. Y\ ithers. When driving a car one I night previously, he just pulled up with ihis headlights touching the palingß of j the fence. Consequently, on the night jof the accident, when he was also drivj ing his car ahead of the ill-fated one. Ihe had been on the lookout for the proper approach to the bridge. Since the accident the approach had been made much safer. The Coroner returned a verdict that the two boys were accidentally drowned by accident, apparently due to an error of judgment on the part of Mr. Withers mistaking the approach to the railway bridge for that to the traffic bridge, and, further, at the time of the accident, there was an element of danger at the locality. H<? remarked that it was satisfactory to note from the evidence that steps had been taken to prevent the recurrence of such accidents.