CARELESS DRIVING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 109, 11 May 1927, Page 14

CARELESS DRIVING.

RETIRED MAN TOUND GUILTY

FINE OF £100 IMPOSED.

(By Telegraph.—Press

PALMERSTON NORTH, Tuesday.

"Had there been the slightest suggestion of joy-riding or drunkenness, then, in epite of your years, it would have been my duty to send you to prison. You were over-confident of your powers as a driver" said Mr. Justcice Alpers to John Drummond, aged 73, a retired ironmonger of Dannevirke, whom the jury found guilty of negligently driving a motor-car on the Woodville-Pthiatua Road, on November 30, 1926, thereby causing the death of George Vinton, a Flock House trainee.

The jury made a recommendation that the law should be framed to compel pedestrians on highways where there are no footpaths to keep to the right so as to face oncoming traffic. The judge imposed a fine of £100, and ordered Drummond to pay £50 toward the cost of hie trial and re-trial. He also cancelled accused's driver's licence for" four years..

"ERROR OP JUDGEMENT."

WOMAN DRIVER ACQUITTED,

(Bj Teleffraph.—Own Correspondent.)

CHRISTCHURCH, Tuesday.

"If it is any satisfaction to the jury, I may say that I concur in their verdict," said Mr. Justice Adams, when, after a retirement of 15 minutes, the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty in the case in which Helen May Kinnimont was charged that, on February 20, she negligently drove a motor-car in Selwyn Street and thereby caused the death of David Noel Nelson, a boy who was standing on the footpath. The crown prosecutor read a statement by accused, in which she said that the accident occured through an error of judgement on her part. In his direction to the jury, Mr- Justice Adams said unless they were satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that there had been negligence, accused should be acquitted.