KILLED BY MOTOR.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19451, 26 October 1928, Page 4

KILLED BY MOTOR.

CORONER TELLS OP LITTLE KNOWN FACT. (PBEBB ASSOCIATION TKLBOEAM.) WELLINGTON, October 25. The inquest was concluded to-day on Samuel Sloan Oliver, of Hastings, who was knocked down on Thorndon quay early in the morning of October 6th by a motor-car driven by William Wilson Carter, foreman for General Motors, Petone, and who died in hospital from fracture of the skull and haemorrhage of the brain. The evidence was to the effect' that the driver of the motor-car was returning from a banquet at the Grand Hotel, where he had had drinks, but they had no effect on his capacity as a driver. The police said he showed no effects of drink. The place of the accident; although well lighted, had several shadows about it, and Oliver appeared to come out of one into the beam of the car, when he was seen too late. Oliver appeared to lurch forward op to the car. The Coroner (Mr E. Page): "It is a fact that a person moving from alternate lights and shades is not visible to the driver of a motor-car until he enters the beam of the motor's headlights." Many people, he added, did not know this, and imagined that because a street was lighted by overhead lamps they could be seen the whole time they were crossing the road, whereas such was not the case. He found that Oliver was accidentally killed through being knocked down by a motor-car in the early hours of the morning 'of October 6th. In his view the evidence fell short of establishing criminal liability on the part of the driver.