COLLIDED WITH CAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 245, 15 October 1937, Page 8

COLLIDED WITH CAR

ELDERLY MAN'S DEATH

"ACCIDENTAL," SAYS CORONER

DRIVER HOT TO BLAME.

"The collision was accidental, no blame being attachable to the driver so far as I can see," commented the coroner, Mr. P. K. Hunt, after having heard the depositions of witnesses at an inquest to-day touching the death of an elderly man, Mr. Thomas Ross, on August 4 at the Auckland Hospital, where he had been taken after collision with a motor car in Prince's Street on the.evening of July 31. The evidence of the driver of the car, John Clarence McGregor, and two passengers .was that the-visibility was poor at the time, just before 6 p.m., owing to slight rain, and that none of them saw the pedestrian until he was bumped by the car on the driver's side. The car at* the time was travelling at a speed, they estimated, of 15 to 20 miles per hour, the driver adding that he was driving with care at the moment owing to bothered by the lights of an approaching car. There was evidence that Mr. Ross had had some drink, just before the accident, hut was quite sober. The medical evidence was that on admission to the hospital suffering from ennensslen, M*. Ross' breath ha* a strong smell of ajcohol mid that his death was due to a malady known a* uremia, possibly accelerated by the shock of the collision.

The coroner found that the collision was accidental and that the cause of death was nremfa accelerated by injuries caused by being knocked down by the car.