FATAL SERVICE CAR SMASH

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21385, 30 January 1935, Page 9

FATAL SERVICE CAR SMASH

— EVIDENCE AT INQUEST (sracut, to THIS riIBBS.) NELSON, January 20. An inquest into the deaths of Phyllis Merle Kite and George David McKay, who died following a motor accident on the Hope Saddle early In the morning of Christmas Day, was hold before the coroner, Mr T. K Maunsell, today. The evidence showed that, after a delay in leaving Nelson for Murchison In one of Spiers's- (Murchison Motors) cars, a stop was made at Motupiko. The driver, Philip E. Lynch, said he was tired and requested a passenger whom he knew as a driver, Leslie Stewart, to take a turn at the wheel, to which Stewart expressed his willingness. When ascending the Nelson side of the Hope Saddle all the passengers except Miss Kite and Stewart were asleep. Stewart's evidence was that, Miss Kite asked him to allow her to remove her coat from under him. He rose in his seat while she pulled the coat free and it fell on the gear lever. Meanwhile the car had lost speed, and he glanced down to see that the gears were free, in anticipation of a change to low gear. On looking up again he found that the car was on the side of the road, and it was too late to bring it back from the bank. The car rolled down the hillside 121 feet before coming to rest upside down. Summing up, the coroner said that apparently the accident was attributable to two causes: First, the driver had kept to his right-hand side of the road, which was not necessary, as the road was wide; and second, the girl had distracted his attention by asking for her coat at a time when the negotiation of the hill reauired every care. However, he would leave the verdict as that Miss Kite died as a result of n fractured base of the skull, and McKav as the result of sninnl injuries accidentally caused wli'le riding in a car driven by Leslie Stewrrt.